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Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India. 



VICTORIA 



ixty Years a Qoeei^ 



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PHILADELPHIA, PA., AND CHICA 

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Copyright 1897 
J. H. WILLARD 



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PREFACE. 

The fame of a woman in nearly all cases rests in what she is, rather 
than in what she does in the world. Her heroism of the noblest order is 
displayed more in her ability to sustain man by the encouragement in her 
affections, than in usurping his prerogative as a conqueror on the field 
of adventure, or in the achievements of thought and handiwork. Her 
beauty rather than her muscular strength, has been her power since the 
world began, and a Cleopatra defeats an Antony by the unassailable 
quality of her charms. Her learning has more often than not been 
relegated to the mastering of homely affairs, till it is only of compara- 
tively recent date that she was supposed to equal a man in ideas. But 
there have always been exceptions to any set rules, and the history of 
the world comes down to us replete with the efforts of women in 
scenes other than those of home-life pure and simple, though the home 
has always been the mecca of woman and the ties of tender life her 
dearest hope. In this year that has seen the celebration of the reign 
of a woman, a reign that has exceeded sixty years in duration ; it would 
seem that with all the emancipation and progress of her sex, Victoria 
of England is content to go down to posterity as the u Good Queen," a 
ruler who has been wise and merciful, womanly and politic. She has 
worn the crown gracefully and used the sceptre with gentleness, till 
now that her life is well known to her name and generation, it may be 
aptly said of her, that to be womanly is to be queenly. 

And yet to be queenly is to be heroic, if Diana of Poitiers be a 
factor in the history of her times. Again, Joan Dare would prove 
that piety and exaltation are the qualities befitting a ruler, a Queen of 
the suffering world, seeing in her warlike efforts the sceptre of her 
womanliness, in her martyrdom the crown of her strength. Here wis- 
dom raises her voice, and insists that she is the ruler of the world who 
understands it best, and who through her understanding of it, leads it 
to happier issues than it knew. In wisdom and understanding come a 
long array of women, in these days of the latter part of the century, 
many who equal men in the comprehension of the motives that move 
the brain and the heart, noticeably George Eliot, the novelist of her 
times. 

v 



yi PREFACE. 

But, if to move the heart of mankind is to move the heart of the 
strongest man of his kind, then shall Martha Washington be accorded 
her niche in the annals of American history, inasmuch as she aided by 
her trust and sympathy, and with her enthusiasm, her immortal husband 
who brought to a harassed country the boon of liberty and free owner- 
ship to each man in a government a by the people, of the people, and 
for the people." 

It has been the aim in the compilation of this book, to present 
womanhood in the various phases that go to make prominence and 
fame. From Semiramis to the Maid of Saragossa, from the unhappy 
Mary Queen of Scots to Victoria, from Martha Washington to Florence 
Nightingale, from Charlotte Bronte to George Eliot, the essay has been 
to throw light upon the brave deeds, upon the sacrifices of women, 
upon woman's beauty, her wisdom, her kindliness, her art, upon the 
conditions in which birth found her and those she called her own when 
she had worked her way after troublous windings, to an apex where 
all the world might see her and form its opinions of her. 

In the biography of the Queen, every effort has been made to show 
the womanhood of the ruler, and in bringing the story down to a de- 
scription of the Diamond Jubilee, the editor is happy to think that the 
reader will possess the complete history of Her Majesty, as in all like- 
lihood the duties of her position will hereafter be deputed to the Heir 
Apparent, the Prince of Wales. 

With this pleasing reflection, the editor awaits the verdict of the 
reader. 

Philadelphia, July, 1897. 



CONTENTS. 



VICTORIA, 



Elizabeth and Victoria compared — Foremost women — Wise Rulers — Rivals in the making of 
History and length of Reign — 1817 a memorable year — Probable successors to the 
throne — Edward, Duke of Kent — His marriage — Birth of Alexandria Victoria — Situation 
of the Succession — Death of the Duke — Early Education of Victoria — Wilberforce — 
Anecdotes of Victoria's early life — Her Confirmation — Death of King William — Victoria 
proclaimed Queen — Her Coronation — Governmental Troubles — Prince Albert — Marriage 
of Victoria — Prince Albert's position — Attempt on the life of the Queen — Birth of the 
Princess Royal — Birth of the Heir-Apparent — Attempts on the life of the Queen — Visit 
of the Queen and Prince Consort to Scotland — Birth of the Princess Alice— Birth of the 
Duke of Edinburgh — Birth of the Princess Helena — Osborne House — Happy Home Life 

Visit of the Queen and Prince to Ireland — Another attempt on the life of the Queen 

— Birth of the Duke of Connaught — Opening of the Crystal Palace Exhibition — Death 
of the Duke of Wellington — Events of the last year of the " Great Peace " — Birth of the 
Duke of Albany — Military Alliance of the Four Powers — The Crimean War — Florence 
Nightingale — Visits of the Queen to the wounded — Visit of the Emperor and Empress 
of France to England— Visit of the Queen and Prince Consort to France — Summer 
Holidays — Echoes of the Crimean War — Victoria becomes Empress of India — Birth of the 
Princess Beatrice— Marriage of the Princess Royal and Prince Frederick William — First 
break in the home-life— Visit of the Prince of Wales to America — American respect for 

Victoria— Death of the Duchess of Kent — The Queen again visits Ireland Indisposition 

of the Prince Consort— ^Devotion! of the Princess Alice — Death of the Prince Consort — 
The nation in mourning— ^Sympathy of the people — Heart-rending despair of the Queen 
— Health of the Royal widow impaired — Her strength of Character — The Civil War 
in America — The Queen's policy regarding it — Tennyson's Ode to the Prince Consort — 
Seclusion of the Queen at Osborne — Marriage of the Princess Alice — Visit of the 
Queen to Denmark— Marriage of the Prince of Wales — Revival of Trade — Reappearance 
of the Queen in Public— Birth of a son to the Prince and Princess of Wales — Death of the 
King Leopold— The Atlantic Cable— The Queen sends the first Message— The Royal 
Albert Hall — Abolition of Public Executions— Popularity of the Queen's Book— Fall 

of the French Empire Triumph of Democratic ideas— Charles Dickens— Marriage 

of the Princess Louisa to the Marquis of Lome— Illness of the Prince of Wales— Demon- 
stration of national loyalty— Marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh to the daughter of the 
Czar of Russia— The Queen seldom in public— Visit of the Czar of Russia— The Royal 
Titles Bill— Her Majesty visits the London hospital— Unveiling of the Scotch national 
memorial to Prince Albert— Trouble with the Turk— Russo-Turkish war— The Queen 
visits Lord Beaconsfield at Hughenden manor— Death of the Grand Duchess of Hesse— 
Her peculiarly attractive character— The Zulu war— Abolishment of corporal punishment 
for military offenses— Marriage of the Duke of Connaught — Two great grandmothers- 
Distress in Ireland— Visit to Hesse-Darmstadt — Her social duties performed by the Prince 
and Princess of Wales— Death of Lord Beaconsfield— Assassination of the Czar of Russia — 
The Queen's letter to Mrs. Garfield-The court goes into mourning-Attempted assassinations 
of the Queen— Marriage of the Duke of Albany— John Brown— The housing of the poor. 



viii CONTENTS. 

VICTORIA— (continued. ) 

Death of the Duke of Albany — Marriage of the Princess Beatrice — The Prince of Wales 
and British Imperialism — Garden party at Marlborough house — Golden Jubilee year — 
Imperial festival in India — The Jubilee ode — The Queen visits Buffalo Bill's ''Wild West 
Show*'— Celebration of the Jubilee in London — Ceremonies and processions — Confering 
honors — 27,000 children entertained — The imperial institute — Gladstone on the Queen's 
policy — A retrospect of fifty years — Preparations for the Diamond Jubilee — Sixty years a 
Queen — London crowded — Visitors from every quarter of the globe — A six days program — 
President McKinley's congratulations — The world honors Queen Victoria — Her majesty's 
costume on Jubilee day — Unsurpassed magnificence of the spectacles and exercises — 
Moral significance — The strength of popular feeling — Comments, 19 

SEMIRAM1S. 

a. cautious Exordium — The Goddess Derceto and the Assyrian Venus — The Foundling Hospital 
of the Classics — Semiramis nursed by Pigeons — Discovered and educated by the King's 
Intendant — Her Marriage — Is summoned to the Camp— Becomes a Widow and marries the 
King — Her Accession to the Throne — Her Achievements — She embellishes Babylon — The 
Babylonish Lake — The Temple of Belus — The Oracle of Jupiter Ammon — Semiramis invades 
the Territories of Stabrobates — A Battle in the Indus — Defeat and Death of Semiramis — 
Her Tomb — Interpretation to be placed upon her Story, 141 

PENELOPE. 

Birth of Penelope and Marriage with Ulysses — Paris, Helen and the Trojan War — Ulysses is 
•summoned to Ilium and is absent Twenty Years — Penelope is importuned by Suitors — She 
repulses them by various ingenious Devices — Penelope's Web — Her Letter to Ulysses — The 
Suitors become impatient — Antinoiis — Medon — Irus — Melanthius — Their Extravagance — 
Ulysses returns in Disguise — Is regaled with a Pork Steak, and is recognized by his Dog 
Argus — He begs at his own Table — Overpowers the Mendicant Irus in single Fight — Inter- 
view of Penelope and the Suitors — The Presents of the latter — Penelope is forced to choose 
a Husband from one hundred and eight Aspirants — Minerva suggests a Mode of baffling 
them — Penelope proposes a Tournament with the Bow and Arrow — Terrible Battle between 
Ulysses, Minerva, Telemachus and Eumaeus, on the one Side, and the one hundred and eight 
on the other — Astounding Result of this unequal Fight — Fidelity of Penelope rewarded, 155 

CORNELIA. 

The Family of Scipio Africanus — Cornelia's Marriage — Her Character — The Education of her 
Children — A Prodigy and its Interpretation — Death of Tiberius — Successive Deaths 0' nine 
of Cornelia's Children — Her Rejection of the Hand ot Ptolemy Physco — Cornelia's Jewels — 
Marriage of her Son Tiberius and of her Daughter Sempronia — The Licinian Law — A Sedi- 
tion — Death of Tiberius — The Mother of the Gracchi — Caius is made Tribune — A Collision — 
Fall of Caius Gracchus — Closing Years of the Life of Cornelia, 171 

CLEOPATRA. 

The Great Enchantress of the World and her Heart Conquests — Birth and Quarrels with her 
Brother — Meeting with Julius Cc:sar — Marc Antony — His Infatuation and his Gifts to her — 
Cleopatra's Personal Appearance— Defeat of Marc Antony by Octavius Csesar — Death of 
Marc Antony and of Cleopatra— Opinions of Historians and Poets, 185 



CONTENTS. ix 

ZENOBIA. 

Tadmor in the Wilderness — War between Rome and Persia* — Interference of Odenatus, a Pal 
myrenian Senator — He receives the Title of Associate Augustus — Zenobia — Her Charactei 
and Personal Appearance — Death of Odenatus — Zenobia ascends the Throne — The Policy of 
her Reign — She assumes the Title of Queen of the East — Aurelian resolves to humble her 
Pride — He marches against her — The Dogs of Tyana — The Battles of Antioch and Emesa — 
Zenobia defeated — The Siege of Palmyra — Aurelian's Letter to the Roman People — Zenobia's 
Dispatch to Aurelian — Her Flight from Palmyra — Her Capture — The Fate of Longinus, her 
Counsellor — Zenobia is taken to Rome to grace Aurelian's Triumph — A Barbarous Pageant—. 
Zenobia ted in Fetters through the Streets — Her Exile at Tibur — The Modern Traveller at 
Tivoli, 193 

BEATRICE. 

The Birth of Beatrice Portinari — Her Meeting with Dante — His Love — Her Marriage to another 
and early Death — The Vita Nuova — Dante's Determination to hush his Muse till he can Sing 
of Beatrice more worthily — The Performance of his Vow — The Divina Commedia — The Nine 
Circles of Hell — The Mount of Purgatory — The Purgation of the Seven Mortal Sins — The 
Terrestrial Paradise — The Approach of Beatrice — The Ten Heavens — The Harmony of the 
Spheres — The Empyrean — A Gaze at the Great Mystery — The Brow of Beatrice bound with 
Dante's Laurel, 209 

JOAN DARC. 

The Orthography of the Name of Joan Dare — Her Birth and Childhood — Her Contemplations — 
The Superstitions of her Village — A Legend of the Enchanter Merlin — Unhappy Condition 
of the Country — Charles VII. and Agnes Sorel — Joan and her Family driven from Home — 
Joan's Visions — Her Interviews with St. Michael — She Visits Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs — 
Is regarded as a Witch — A Priest performs the Ceremony of Purification — Joan is summoned 
by the King to Chinon — Her Journey — She recognizes Charles VII. among his Courtiers — 
She is examined by the University and the Parliament — The Verdict of the Council — The 
Ordeal of Maidenhood — Joan is equipped for Battle — She joins the Army and reforms the 
Morals of the Camp — Her Arrival at Orleans — Collision with the English — Joan's uncon- 
scious Profanity — The Conflict of the 8th of May — Deliverance of Orleans — Joan rejoins the 
King — She engages to crown him at Rheims — The Pilgrimage thither — The Consecration — 
Termination of Joan's Mission — Her Error in remaining with the Army — Unsuccessful Siege 
of Paris — Her Capture at Compiegne — She is given up to the English and is tried for Sorcery 
— Details of the Trial — She disconcerts her Judges — Easter Sunday in Joan's Cell — A Mock 
Execution — The Parody of St. Ouen — Her Condemnation to the Stake — Horrible Scene at 
her Martyrdom — The Mitre of the Inquisition — The miserable Deaths of her Persecutors — 
The Rehabilitation of her Memory — The Pageant of 1855— Reflections, . . . 217 

ISABELLA. 

Birth and Childhood of Isabella — Her proposed Union with Don Pedro Giron — The Civil War- 
Attempted Dethronement of King Henry — Isabella's Refusal to accept the Crown — Her 
Suitors — Ferdinand of Aragon — His Meeting with Isabella — Their Personal Appearance — 
Their Marriage — Death of Henry — Isabella proclaimed Queen — The Battle of Toro— 



x CONTENTS. 

Isabella's Schemes of Reform — The Establishment of the Inquisition — The War against tne 
Moors — Capture of Alhama — Siege and Surrender of Malaga — Reduction of Baza — Siege of 
Granada — Building of Santa Fe — The Hebrews contribute Moneys for the Extirpation of 
Saracen Unbelievers — Expulsion of the Jews — The Voyages and Discoveries of Christopher 
Columbus — Marriage of Isabella's son John and of her daughter Isabella — Their Deaths — 
Birth of Charles V. — Incipient Insanity of Joanna, Isabella's second Daughter — Decline of 
Isabella's Health — Her Will — Her Death— Reflections upon her Reign, .... 265 

DIANA DE POITIERS. 

Diana's Residence at the Court of Francis I. — Her Liaison with Henry, Duke of Orleans — Con- 
sequent Scenes in the Palace — Henry becomes Dauphin and assumes Diana's Colors — He 
ascends the Throne, and marries Catherine de Medicis — The Queen and the Favorite — The 
Royal H entwined with the Patrician D — Diana still Beautiful at the Age of Fifty — Description 
of her Appearance — The Death of the King and Fall of Diana — Her Unconscious Tribute to 
the Supremacy of Virtue, . . ... . . . . ... 291 

ANNE BOLEYN. 

Origin of the Family of Anne Boleyn — Her Birth and Education — Her Residence in France — 
She is summoned to England to marry Piers Butler — She engages herself to Henry, Lord 
Percy — Henry VIII. becomes enamored of her and forbids her Union with Percy — The latter 
is dismissed from Court — The King makes an Avowal to Anne — His Repulse — Anne absents 
herself for four Years — Change in her Character and Conduct — Henry determines to win her 
as a Wife, and to obtain a Divorce from his Queen — A Pestilence recalls him to a sense of 
his Iniquities — He makes thirty-nine Wills — The Queen is exiled to Greenwich — Scandal busy 
with Anne's Name — Fall of Wolsey — Nuptials of Henry and Anne — Pageants in Honor of the 
Event — Birth of Elizabeth — Execution of Sir Thomas More — The Reformation — Inconstancy 
of the King — Jane Seymour — Decline of Anne's Favor — She is accused of Adultery and 
imprisoned— Her Appeal to the King— Her Trial and Conviction— The Execution of ber 
alleged Paramours— Her last Hour— Her Execution — The King awaits the Signal Gun, that 
he may wed Jane Seymour — Character of Anne Boleyn — Her Influence in aid of the Trans- 
lation of the Scriptures, . . . . . 297 

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

Birth of Mary Stuart — Her Coronation at the Age of nine Months — Her Residence at Linlithgow 
and Inchmahome — She is sent to France — Her Desire to take the Veil — Her Education and 
Accomplishments — Her Marriage with the Dauphin — Her Beauty — Her Claim to the English 
Throne— She becomes Queen of France — Her Return to Scotland— Her Dismay at the 
Poverty of the Land — She offends John Knox — Her Occupations — Her Second Marriage- 
Henry Lord Darnley — The Assassination of Rizzio— Birth of James I. of England — Envious 
Speech of Queen Elizabeth— The Earl of Bothwell— His Plot to murder Darnley— Its Execu- 
tion—Trial and Acquittal of Bothwell— His Marriage with Mary — They separate at Carberry 
Hill— Mary at Loch Leven— She is forced to abdicate— Her Escape— The Battle of Langside 
—Mary throws herself upon the Generosity of Elizabeth— Her Trial for Complicity in the 
Murder of Darnley— Her eighteen Months' Captivity— Babington's Plot— Mary's Trial as an 
Accessory— Her Defence and Conviction— The Execution— The Verdict of Posterity, . 823 



CONTENTS. X1 



POCAHONTAS. 



Captain John Smith in Virginia — The Hostility of the Emperor Powhatan — Smith is taken 
Prisoner by Opechancanough — He is saved by the Intervention of a Pocket Compass — He is 
taken to the Residence of Powhatan — The Queen of Apamatuck and Matoaka, the Snow- 
feather — The latter saves Smith's Life — Her Name is changed to Pocahontas — She Visits the 
English Fort and turns Summersets with the Boys — She befriends Smith, and a second Time 
saves Lis Life — An Indian " Anticke " — Smith leaves the Colony — Pocahontas forsakes her 
"ather— She is decoyed on board an English Ship, and is detained a Prisoner — Powhatan 
refuses to ransom her — She remains two Years, and falls in Love — Her Baptism — Powhatan 
consents to her Marriage — The Ceremony at Jamestown — Pocahontas visits England — Smith's 
Appeal in her Behalf to the Queen — Her Portrait is taken — Meeting of Smith and Poca- 
hontas — Her Illness and Death — Her Burial at Gravesend — Her Character — Her Descendants 
—John Randolph— The Nonpareil of Virginia, .347 

NELL GWYNN. 

An Explanation — Nell Gwynn's Horoscope — She becomes a Bar-tender and an Orange-girl — The 
Reopening of the Theatres — Women's Parts are, for the first Time, performed by Women — 
Orange Moll — Pepys admires " Pretty, Witty Nell," and kisses her — She becomes an Actress 
— She plays in Dryden's " Maiden Queen " — Pepys is enthusiastic — Lord Buckhurst is Nelly's 
Lover — He is induced to yield her to the King — Nelly at Whitehall — Madame Carwell — Odd's 
Fish !— The Manager of Drury Lane and Oliver Cromwell — Nelly's two Sons by the King — 
Her Device to obtain Titles for them — The Origin of Chelsea Hospital — Death of Charles II. 
— "Let not poor Nelly Starve "—Nell's straitened Circumstances — Her Illness, Contrition, 
and Christian Death — Dr. Tenison's Sermon — Apologies for Nell Gwynn — The Duke of St. 
Albans — Harriet Mellon — Angela Burdett Coutts, 371 

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

Birth of Lady Mary Pierrepont — Her Education and Precocity — She is enrolled a Toast at the 
Kitcat Club, at the Age of Eight Years — She directs her Father's Household and carves on 
Election Days — Her Acquaintance with Edwarl Wortley Montagu — They avow their Love — 
Lord Kingston objects to the Match — The Lovers are privately Married — Lady Mary appears 
at St. James's — She accompanies her Husband to Constantinople — The Bagnio — Adrianople 
— The Lovely Fatima — Lady Mary studies the Language — She observes the Process of Inocu- 
lation for the Small Pox — Her Infant Son the first British Subject Inoculated — Her Return to 
England — Her Intimacy with Pope — She dabbles in South Sea Stock — Inoculation in England 
— Her Efforts to introduce it — Her Successes — Three Cases end fatally — She is attacked from 
the Pulpit — The Medical Profession takes up Arms against her — Theological Arguments 
against the Practice — Final Triumph of Common Sense — Lady Mary's Quarrel with Pope — 
Her Travels upon the Continent — Her Death — The Surreptitious Publication of her Letters— 
Her Position in Literature— Her Cenotaph at Lichfield, 389 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 
Marie Antoinette at the Age of Fourteen Years — She is contracted to Louis, Dauphin of France 
—Her Education to fit her for her Station — Her Journey to France, and Arrival at Compiegm 



xii COKTENTS. 

— The Nuptial Festivities — Marie Antoinette at Court — Madame Etiquette — A Masked Ball by 
Moonlight — Marie Antoinette becomes Queen of France — She obtains the Title of Autri- 
chienne, and offends the Royal Sisters-in-Law — The Sliding Scale of Beauty — A Forbidden 
Amusement — The Queen plays Truant from Home — She witnesses the Exercises of the 
future Charles X. upon the Tight Rope — Her Son, the Martyr Louis XVII. — The Queen's 
Necklace — Fatal Results — Madame Deficit — The French Revolution — The Emigration — The 
Mot at Versailles — The Baker, the Baker's Wife, and the Little Apprentice — The Flight of 
the Royal Family — They are intercepted at Varennes — The Monarchy is Overthrown — Marie 
Antoinette in the Temple — The Precautions of the Municipality — The Execution of the King 
— Horrible Treatment inflicted on the Dauphin — Trial and Conviction of Marie Antoinette — 
Scenes on the Road to the Scaffold — The Execution — Opinions of Lamartine, Alison and 
Thomas Jefferson — Example of Marie Antoinette, 411 

THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. 

The First Siege of Saragossa — The City contemptuously spoken of by the French as inhabited 
by Priests, Cowards, and Women — An Apparition — Southey's Description of the Scene — 
A-gostina Zaragoz — Her Intrepidity and Omnipresence — A Laconic Reply to a Laconic Sum- 
mons — War to the Knife — Eleven Days' Butchery — The Siege is raised — Agostina is made 
an Engineer of Artillery — The Second Siege — Agostina is taken Prisoner by the French — 
Her Escape — Lord Byron's "Childe Harold "— Wilkie's "Defence of Saragossa" — Statue of 
Agostina by J. Bell — Indifference of the Spanish upon the Subject of Agostina, . . 441 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

An American Heroine — Birth and early Life of Anne Hasseltine — Her Youthful Gaieties — Her 
Conversion — She teaches School at Salem — The General Association of Congregationalist 
Clergymen — The Importance of Foreign Missions urged — Adoniram Judson — His offer of Mar- 
riage to Miss Hasseltine, together with a Proposal to accompany him to India — Her Earnest 
Consideration of the Project — Her Consent — Mr. Judson's Letter to her Parents — Her Mar- 
riage and Departure for Calcutta — The Voyage — The Arrival — The English Mission at Seram- 
pore — Vexatious Persecution by the Police — Mr. and Mrs. Judson are compelled to leave for 
the Isle of France — Mrs. Judson in quest of missing Baggage — The Death of Harriet Newell — 
The Missionaries arrive at Rangoon — Their study of the Language — Difficulties — Mrs. Judson 
visits Madras for her Health — Her Return — Birth and Death of her first Child — Arrival of a 
Printing Press — Two Tracts are published — Mrs. Judson reads the Scriptures to Birmese 
Women — Erection of a Zayat — The first Convert — The Sacrament administered in two 
Languages — A Solemn Baptism — The King of Birmah rejects the Bible — Mrs. Judson visits 
England and America — She finds the Mission prospering on her Return — They ascend the 
Irrawaddy to Ava — War between Birmah and England — Arrest of Mr. Judson as a Spy — His 
Sufferings — The Efforts of his Wife to obtain his Release — Her Silver confiscated — Mr. Jud 
son in the Death Prison — A Mince Pie far from Home — Devotion of Mrs. Judson — Birth of 
her second Child, a Daughter — Affecting Scene in the Prison Yard— Poetry composed by 
the chained Father — The English advance towards Ava — Mr. Judson is secretly removed- 
Agony of his Wife— Oung-pen-la, the " Never-to-be-Forgotten " — A Filthy Receptacle for 

Grain Mrs. Judson's only Home — The Small Pox and Famine — Unparalleled Misery Mr. 

Judson allowed to beg Nourishment from compassionate Mothers for his starving Infant— 



CONTENTS. xiii 

Mt. Judson sent, as Interpreter, to Maloun — Mrs. Judson attacked with Spotted Fever — The 
Birmese assemble to see her die — Her Recovery — Release of the Missionaries at the Behest 
of the English Commander — A Thrill of Delight — The Whirligig of Time, and one of its 
Revenges — Mrs. Judson and a wounded Officer — Her failing Health — Her last Illness and 
Death — Her Grave beneath the Hope Tree — Conclusion, 449 

CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

The Six Children of the Rev. Patrick Bronte — Their Early Life — Potato Dinners — Mr. Bronte's 
Eccentricities — Death of his Wife — His eldest four Daughters at Cowan's Bridge — Death of 
Maria and Elizabeth — Occupations of Charlotte— Her Personal Appearance — The Seminary 
of Roe Head — A Ghostly Neighborhood — Charlotte's Scholarship— Her Opinions upon Books 
—She returns to Roe Head as an Instructress — She spends two Years at Brussels — Branwell 
Bronte — Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell — Their Volume of Poems — Incipient Blindness of their 
Father — " Jane Eyre " commenced — Progress of the Work — Miseries of Authorship — Publi- 
cation and Success of Jane Eyre — Opinions of the Press — Mr. Bronte reads the Book, and is 
favorably impressed — The Secret faithfully kept — Charlotte's First Visit to London — Death 
of Branwell — Death of Emily — Death of Anne — The Valley of the Shadow of Death — 
Shirley — The Mystery solved — Villette — Mr. Nicholls proposes Marriage to Charlotte — Her 
Father's Objections — His final Consent — Marriage and Death of Charlotte Bronte — Jane Eyre 
a Classic — Stanzas to her Memory, . 487 

GEORGE ELIOT. 

Birth in Warwickshire, England — Her life at boarding schools — Early love for Reading — A 
Waverly Novel — Proficiency in study — Death of her mother — Installed as house-keeper — 
Increasing love for Books — Acquires modern and ancient languages — Longing for a Col- 
legiate Education — Favorite Authors — Evangelical Views — Translates Strauss' Life of 
Jesus — Meets Ralph Waldo Emerson — Her opinion of Emerson — Death of her Father — 
Trip to the Continent — Rest at Geneva — Limited means — Studies Socialism— Meets 
editor of the Westminster Review — Becomes associate editor of the Review — Meets 
foremost writers of the day — Her work on the Review — First article — Meets George 
Henry Lewes — Resigns editorial position— Goes to Germany— Home of Goethe at Wei- 
mar — Meets Liszt and Rauch — Her literary work in Germany — Return to England — 
Begins to write fiction — Adopts the nom de plume of George Eliot — Blackwood publishes 
her first novel — Comments upon her works — Beginning of her fame — Adam Bede — The 
reading world wild over the novel — Home at Wandsworth — The name of the author 
made public — Mill on the Floss — Goes to Italy for studies for Romola — Purchases a home 
in England — Subsequent novels — Death of Mr. Lewes — John Walter Cross — Marriage to 
Mr. Cross — Established at Chelsea — Bible Readings — Home Life — Death of George 
Eliot — Interment in Highgate Cemetery. 505 

MARTHA WASHINGTON. 

Birth and Ancestry — Debut into society — Personal appearance — Marriage to Daniel Parke 
Custis — Two homes — Mother of four children — Death of Mr. Custis — Death of two 
Children — Ability as manager of her estate — Wealthiest widow in Virginia— Meets 
Colonel Washington — Weems's Life of JVashin£-ton-Vra.iseso[Mrs. Custis- Washington's 



xiv CONTENTS. 

Wooing— " The man what's expected "—Washington's only love letter— Marriage to 
Colonel Washington— Established at Mount Vernon— Family life— Colonial disturbances 
—Death of Mrs. Custis' daughter Martha.— Marriage of her son— Mutterings against the 
mother country—" I hope you will all stand firm— I know George will"— Washington as a 
Virginia Colonel— Washington's letters to his wife— Mount Vernon in danger— Lady 
Washington joins her husband at Cambridge— Visits New York— Visits Philadelphia— 
Innoculated for small pox— Again at Mount Vernon— Mrs. Washington visits Valley Forge— 
—Her concern for the soldiers— Social spirit at headquarters— General Washington's 
brief stay at Mount Vernon— Death of John Custis— General Washington adopts his 
children— General and Mrs. Washington in Philadelphia— At Newburgh— Home life 
again at Mount Vernon— The wife of the President of the United States— Inauguration 
ceremonies— Lady Washington's receptions— Restraints of official life— Mrs. Washington's 
chariot— Congenial life in Philadelphia— Entertains Lafayette at Mount Vernon— Wash- 
ington's birthday— His retirement from public life— The Washingtons at home again— 
Death of General Washington—" I have no more trials to pass through"— Death of Mrs. 
Washington — Obituary, 517 

EUGENIE. ^ 

k startling Rumor — A Spanish Countess at Compiegne —The Parisians are discontented — Epi- 
grams — A trying Ordeal — Louis Napoleon announces his intended Marriage to the Senate — 
Effect upon the Country — Eugenie de Montijo — Her Ancestry — Education — Personal Appear- 
ance — Character — The Marriage — A Chilling Reception — An unconsidered Expression— The 
Honeymoon — Her Majesty obtains the Good Will of the People — The Parisians recant — The 
Empress' Taste in Dress— A famous Invention— Her Occupations— Her Political Influence — 
Grief at the Death of the Emperor, and of the Prince Imperial in 1879.— Conclusion, . 529 

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 

Birth in Florence, Italy — Early education — Extensive travel — Proficient in languages — Ten- 
derness for dumb animals — Rich, well favored and highly educated — Begins visting the 
sick — Occasional visits to London — Nursing Arabs in Egypt — Studies in a German 
hospital — Interested in a London hospital — Her work there — Obliged to rest — The 
Crimean war — Soldiers illy provided with food and clothing — Cholera in camp — Dires^ 
suffering among troops — England wakes up — Hospital necessities provided — Nurses 
needed — The Secretary of War writes to Miss Nightingale — Offers her absolute authority 
— acceptance — Sails fcr the seat of war with thirty-four nurses — A frail woman's work 
— The magnitude of the undertaking — The devoted band reach Scutari — At work — Miss 
Nightingale's difficult task — Military and medical prejudice — The invalid kitchen — Every 
where at once — Death-rate reduced — A ministering angel — The London Times — Pros- 
trated by fever — Thousands saved by her efforts — Her reception in London — Queen 
Victoria sends for her — The visit to Balmoral — Presented with a valuable jewel — The 
gift of the Sultan of Turkey — Grant for a school of nurses — The " Nightingale Home " — 
The " Nightingale Training School " — Gifts sent to the Home — As an author — Hospital 
Notes — Hygenic beliefs — No dark houses — " Nursing is an art " — The Gordom Memorial 
Fund — Her seventy-seventh birthday — 111 health — Summary of her work. 555 



List of Illustrations. 



Victoria, Queen of England and Empeess of India . . Frontispiece 

West Front of Kensington Palace . . 20 

Victoria (^t 26) . . . . . 21 

The Duke of Kent 23 

The Duchess of Kent 24 

Victoria at the time of her Accession 28 

The Queen receiving the Sacrament at her Coronation ... 31 

Portrait of Victoria, St. George's Chapel ....... 32 

Marriage of Queen Victoria 35 

The Prince Consort 37 

The Princess Royal 39 

Christening of the Princess Royal .41 

The Princess Alice . 42 

The Duke of Wellington at Windsor Castle 43 

Marriage of the Princess Alice 44 

Osborne House 45 

Royal Nursery at Osborne 46 

Christening of the Princess Louise 47 

Costume Ball, Buckingham Palace 49 

Balmoral Castle ... 51 

The Duke of Wellington 53 

The Duke of Connaught 54 

The Queen and Reapers, . . . , 55 

Distributing Crimean Medals 57 

Buckingham Palace 59 

Lord Campbell's Audience of the Queen ....... 61 

Queen Victoria in the State Robes . . . . , . . . 63 

Dra wing-Room, Buckingham Prlace , . . ... . . . 65 

The Princess Alice reading to her Father 71 

Funeral of the Prince Consort . . 72 

xv 



xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The Queen at Osborne ; 73 

The Peince of Wales 77 

The Princess of Wales 78 

Marriage of the Prince of Wales 81 

Marriage of Princess Helena £2 

Laying the Foundation stone of Koyal Albert Hall .... 83 

The Princess Louise , 88 

Marriage of Princess Louise . . 89 

The Queen visiting the London Hospital ....... 93 

Marlborough House 101 

John Brown 105 

The Duke of Albany • . . . . . . 107 

Prince Henry of Battenberg 109 

The Princess Beatrice Ill 

Marriage of the Princess Beatrice 113 

Queen Victoria in 1887 114 

The Queen receiving the address of the House of Lords . . . 122 

The Queen as she appeared on Jubilee Day 1897 ..... 131 

Semiramis • 140 

Penelope 154 

Cornelia ....... ,. ...... . 170 

Cleopatra 183 

Zenobia 19g 

Joan Darc , . . 249 

Isabella of Castile 260 

Diana de Poitiers , 286 

Anne Boleyn 284 

Mary, Queen of Scots 327 

Pocahontas 342 

Nell Gwynn , 375 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 

Marie Antoinette 

Charlotte Bronte 



390 
406 

482 



George Eliot » , . . . 505 



Martha Washington . 

Eugenie 

Florence Nightingale 



516 
528 
554 



AUTHORITIES CONSULTED AND BOOKS REFERRED TO. 



ANCIENT HISTORY, . 

NINEVEH, 

THE ODYSSEY, 

EPISTLES OF THE HEROINES, 
TELEMACHUS, 

PLUTARCH'S LIVES. 

DE PAUPERTATE 

BIOGRAPHIE NOUVELLE, . 

THE HOLY BIBLE. 

AUGUSTA HISTORIA, .... 

RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, 

HARMONEES OF NATURE, . 

RUINS OF ANCIENT CITIES, 

ZENOBIA, OR THE FALL OF PALMYRA, 

BIOGRAPHIE UNIVERSELLE. 



RoUin. 
Layard. 

Pope's Homer. 

Ovid. 

Fcnelon. 



Valerius Maximus. 
Didot. 



Trebellius Pollio. 

Gibbon. 

Bern, de St. Pierre. 

Bucke. 

Ware. 



LA VITA NUOVA, . . 

LA DIVINA COMMEDIA, 

VITA DI DANTE, 

POETS AND POETRY OF EUROPE, 

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, 1833. 

CHRISTIAN EXAMINER, Jan., 1858. 



Dante. 

a 

Boccaccio. 
Longfellow. 



LE PROCES DE LA PUCELLE, 
HISTORY OF FRANCE, 



JEANNE D'ARC, 

U (( 



BIOGRAPHIE NOUVELLE, . 

HISTORY OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA, 
CHRISTOPHE COLOMB, 



LIFE OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, 

HISTORY OF FRANCE, 

LES VIES DES DAMES GALANTES, 



QUEENS OF ENGLAND, 

HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION, 

LD7E OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, 

<< U U U 

HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, 



Jules Quicherat. 
Michelet. 
Henri Martin. 
Guido Goerres. 
Lamartine. 
Abel Desjardins. 
Didot. 

Prescott. 

Roselly de Lorgues. 

Miss Benger. 
Henri Martin. 
Brantbme. 

Agnes Strickland. 
Burnet. 
H. G. Bell. 
Miss Benger. 
Robertson. 



XVH 



XVUl 



AUTHORITIES CONSULTED, ETC. 



HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, . ... 

GOODALL'S EXAMINATION. 

TYTLER'S INQUIRY. 

LES VIES DES DAMES ILLUSTRES, 

HISTORY OP VIRGINIA, . ... 

u u 

GENERALL HISTORIE OF VIRGINIA, 

LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, 

HISTORIE OF TRAVAILE INTO VIRGINIA BRITANNIA, 

LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH, .... 

MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS, .... 

STORY OF NELL GWYNN, 

PEPYS' DIARY. 

BEAUTIES OF THE COURT OF CHARLES H., 

WOMAN'S RECORD 

ANNALS OF CHELSEA HOSPITAL. 

ENVIRONS OF LONDON, 

HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF JAMES H., . 

NELL GWYNN, OR THE PROLOGUE, . . 



Dr. Gilbert Stuart. 



Brantome. 

Stith. 

Burk. 

Captain John Smitk. 

HiUard. 

Strachey. 

Garland. 

Lossing. 

Peter Cunningham. 

Mrs. Jameson. 
Mrs. Hale. 

Lysons. 

Charles James Fox. 

Douglas Jerrold. 



LETTERS OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
BIOGRAPHY OF LADY M. W. M., . 



PLAIN DEALER, 

CRITICAL REVD3W 

SERMONS AND MEDICAL WORKS OF THE PERIOD. 
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, . 
PENNY CYCLOPEDIA. 
REES' CYCLOPEDIA. 



DaUaway. 

Lady Louisa Stuart. 

Steele. 

Smollett. 

Chambers. 



LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, . 
HISTORY OF THE GffiONDLNS, 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 
CHRONIQUES DE L'CEIL DE BCEUF, 

HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR, . 

u (< a 

DISSERTATION ON THE CONVENTION OF CINTRA, 
CHILDE HAROLD, . . . • . 

LIFE OF Sm DAVID WILKIE, 
WOMAN'S RECORD, . 



MEMOER OF REV. DR. JUDSON, 

" MRS. JUDSON, . 

THE EARNEST MAN, . 
MISSIONARY REGISTER. 
HISTORY OF MISSIONS. 



Weber. 
Lamartine. 
Thiers. 
Touchard- Lafosse . 

Southey. 

Napier. 

Wordsworth. 

Byron. 

Allan Cunningham. 

Mrs. Hale. 

Wayland. 

Knowles. 

Conant. 



LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE, . 
LECTURES, 

LIFE OF EDWARD, DUKE OF KENT, . 
ROYAL ALMANACS AND GAZETTES. 
ROYAL PRINCESSES OF ENGLAND, 

FRENCH OFFICIAL JOURNALS AND RECORDS. 
TRICOLORED SKETCHES IN PARIS. 
NEWSPAPERS OF THE DAY. 
PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE AND OBSERVATION. 



Mrs. Gaskell. 
Rev. Henry Giles. 

Neal. 
Mrs. Hall. 



VICTORIA. 

There must always be a comparison between Elizabeth and Victoria. 
They are the two foremost women in English history, the two Queens 
who have reigned longest and whose reigns have been most illustrious. 
Both have been extraordinary women, wise rulers, and to both it was 
allotted that their eras should witness vast additions to the history of 
their country. 

Elizabeth broke the power of Spain. Elizabeth ruined the power 
of the Pope. She championed the Reformation. But she was not fair 
to her commanders, she starved her navy, she shirked and shifted re- 
sponsibilities, she was irresolute and not always true. But her power 
was beyond question, her knowledge of men and affairs stupendous. 
During her reign, literature was at its height, and while she gave little 
or no encouragement to poets, she was called Gloiiana by Spencer and 
" the fair vestal throned in the West " by Shakespeare, and it is even 
said that Shakespeare wrote "The Merry Wives of Windsor" in defer- 
ence to her wish to see FalstafT in love. Elizabeth had a martial spirit, 
she rode among her troops in camp, inspiriting them by brave discourse. 
She was the last of the great Tudors, and throughout her life she held 
firmly in her hands the reins of the policy of State. She was twenty- 
five when she came to the throne which she knew by rights belonged 
to Mary, and she was fearful of her life all through her reign, masterly 
by reason of will, and yet at times timorous because of the woman in 
her; unloved though flattered, forever in the windings of intrigue, and 
realizing her position to the fullest. Craft and duplicity, in her met 
their like, an unwomanly woman in spite of her many and various 
coquetries. She had a passion for display and splendor, for dress and 
ceremony, scandal followed her through life and even now has not 
silenced its voice. Elizabeth united her people in defence of England, 
crushed the Roman power in her kingdom, she stretched her sway 
over the sea and made of Spain not the mistress it had been but a serv- 
itor instead. She established and made solid the Church of England 
and in an age of disputes in dogma, faith and theology. This Queen 
is the rival of Victoria in point of length of reign, and in the making 

(19) 



20 



VICTORIA. 



of history — of Victoria of the blameless life as sovereign, wife and 
mother, of Victoria beloved of her people, Victoria who in 1897 cele- 
brated the sixtieth year of her reign amid acclamation and joy such as 
never before was accorded a ruler. 




WEST FRONT OF KENSINGTON PALACE. 



The year 1817 was memorable in English history. The prosperity 
of the country was seriously menaced, the destinies of a constitutional 
monarchy seemed enveloped in impenetrable gloom. There was the 
prospect of the succession to the throne of the youngest son of George 
III. The King was worn out by mental and physical malady, and of 
his sons there were married, the Duke of York, who had no legal children 
and the Duke of Cumberland, whose first living child was not born till 
1819. The third son was Edward, Duke of Kent, then fifty-one years 
of age, unmarried, and not on friendly terms with his brothers. He 
determined suddenly to marry. 





1 




--; 



J-^l-i.;ai^a 




"yiGTDRIJR 



(set. 26.) 



VICTORIA. 



23 



Victoria, daughter of Duke Franz of Saxe-Coburg Lad taken his 
fancy, and in July, 1818, this lady became the Duchess of Kent 
and the future mother of the future Queen of England. They were 
not blessed with great means and in the spring of 1819 the Duke and 




THE DUKE OF KENT. 

Duchess were installed in Kensington Palace, then, as now, a place of 
residence for the members and proteges of the royal family. Here 
was born, on the 24th of May, 1819, Alexandrina Victoria, Queen of 
Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India— "a pretty little 
princess, plump as a partridge." The Duke had been long estranged 
2 



24 



VICTORIA. 



from his brother, the Prince Regent, but a reconciliation took place 
shortly after the birth of the Princess. The infant was christened on 
the 24th of June, at Kensington Palace. Chief among the sponsors 
were the Prince Regent and the Emperor of Russia. It was in com- 




THE DUCHESS OF KENT. 



pliment to the Czar that the Princess received Alexandrina as her fore- 
most name. In subsequent years, however, this Russianized Greek 
name was abandoned, an.d the far nobler sounding "Victoria " used in 
its stead. 

It had been prophesied that two members of the family should die in 
1820. The Duke of Kent applied this prophec}^ to his brothers, not to 
himself. In the winter of 1819 he went with his wife and child to the 
watering place of Sidmouth, in Devonshire, a warm sheltered spot. 



VICTORIA. 25 

Here he took a cold that prostrated him. He sent for an attendant, 
General Weatherell, and rallied sufficiently to sign his will. The fol- 
lowing day he died. 

The Duke and Duchess had lived abroad to curtail expenses, and 
journeyed to England in order that their child might be born on 
British soil. At the death of her consort " the poor widow," writes 
Baron Stockmar, " found herself, owing to the Duke's considerable 
debts, in a very uncomfortable position. Her brother, Leopold, 
enabled her to return to Kensington, where she henceforth devoted 
herself to the education of her child." 

Six days after the death of the Duke of Kent, the before mentioned 
prophecy was fulfilled by the passing away of his father, the enfeebled 
George III. This occurred on the morning of January 29th. On 
Monday, the 31st, the Prince Regent was proclaimed George IV. 

The death of George III. following so closely upon that of the 
Princess Charlotte and the Duke of Kent, caused grave disquietude re- 
garding the eventual succession to the monarchy. The health of 
George IV. was notedly precarious, his age was advanced and he had 
no legal heir. The Duke of Clarence, next in order, was also aging, 
and the two daughters born to him had died in infancy. The next in 
succession was the infant Victoria, daughter of the Duke of Kent. 

An additional grant of £6,000 a year was made to the Duchess of 
Kent in 1825, in order "that the Princess might be enabled to live more 
in accord with her rank and prospects." 

George IV. reigned just ten years, when on his death his brother, 
the Duke of Clarence, succeeded him as William IV. It was now 
thought wise to make provision for various contingencies of the future; 
therefore a Regency bill was introduced into Parliament which pro- 
vided that in case the Queen (Adelaide) should have a posthumous 
child, she should be the guardian of that child during its minority, and 
also Regent of the Kingdom. If that event did not occur, the Duch- 
ess of Kent should be Regent during the minority of her daughter, the 
Princess Victoria. 

Meanwhile the future husband and cousin of the Princess was 
growing up in Germany. This was Albert, the son of the Duke of 
Coburg. He was born at Rosenau in August of the same year as the 
Princess. 

"How pretty the little mayflower will be," writes the grandmother 
of both the children, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg to the Duchess 
of Kent, " when I see her in a years time." The mayflower, of course, 
being the Princess Victoria. 



26 VICTORIA. 

As her Royal Highness grew up, she was well grounded in languages, 
music, and such branches of science as were in those days considered 
suitable to ladies. Her general education was entrusted to the 
Duchess of Northumberland, and the Princess developed many charm- 
ing qualities. Living for the most part in retirement she was little 
known to the outer world, but her affability impressed all with whom 
she came in contact. Her character was to a certain extent influenced 
by the philanthropist, William Wilberforce, whom she saw frequently. 
Several pleasing anecdotes are related of her charity, and it is said that 
when she visited Ramsgate she was a favorite with the bathing women 
and other habitues of that resort. When, a little later, it became 
almost certain that she would succeed to the throne owing to the child- 
lessness of her father's elder brothers, the Princess emerged more into 
public view, and took her walks and rides in places where she could be 
generally seen. 

It is said that for a long while George IV. treated her mother with 
marked coldness, but the Duke and Duchess of Clarence showed much 
kindness to the Duchess of Kent and her daughter. 

The studies of the Princess were pursued with healthful diligence, 
but she would sometimes show that she had a will of her own, by re- 
fusing to be too closely bound down by rules. A rather clever story 
is to the effect that she once strenuously objected to the dull, mechan- 
ical practicing such as a young musician must undergo. She was told 
that this was necessary if she designed to become a mistress of her 
chosen instrument, the piano-forte. " What would you think of me if 
I became mistress of it at once? " she asked. She was told that that 
would be impossible, that there was no royal road to music. " Oh, 
there is no royal road to music, eh ? " she said. " No ro}-al road ? And 
I am not mistress of my piano-forte? " whereupon she closed the in- 
strument, locked it and took out the key. " There ! " she said, "that's 
being mistress of m}^ piano ; and the royal road to learning is never to 
take a lesson till you're in the humor for it." The readiness to admit 
a fault was amusingly shown during a visit to the seat of Earl Fitz- 
william. The royal part}^ were walking in the grounds, when the 
Princess ran on ahead. One of the under-gardeners pointed out that 
owing to recent rains a certain walk was very slippery, or, as he ex- 
pressed it, using a local term, "very slape." " Slape ! slape!" ex- 
claimed the Princess in the quick utterance of imitative childhood ; 
" and what is ' slape ' ? " The explanation was given, but my lady pro- 
ceeded down the path in spite of her warning, and speedily came to 
grief in falling. Seeing what had happened, Earl Fitzwilliam called 



VICTORIA. 27 

out, " Now your Royal Highness has an explanation of the term 'slape,' 
both theoretically and practically." "Yes, my Lord," she replied, "I 
think I have. And very likely I shall never forget the word." An- 
other time she persisted in playing with a dog against which she had 
been cautioned. The animal snapped at her. " Oh, thank you," she 
said to her cautioner. " You were right, and I was wrong. I shall be 
careful in future." 

It was in 1830, shortly after the death of George IV. that the Duch- 
ess of Northumberland was appointed to the office of governess of the 
Princess, at the suggestion of the new King, William. Under the di- 
rection of the Duchess of Northumberland, the instruction of the 
Princess was conducted by various gentlemen of high repute in their 
several attainments. She made considerable progress in Latin ; from 
Mr. Amos she received the elements of constitutional government as it 
exists in England; Westall, the painter, taught her drawing. Music 
was now studied with assiduity, and the future Queen revealed at an 
early age that passion for a noble art which has since distinguished 
her. 

In July, 1834, the Princess Victoria was confirmed by Dr. Howley, 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Chapel Royal, St. James's. The 
remainder of the year is not distinguished by any special incident, if 
we omit that occurring at Tunbridge Wells which gives a pleasing idea 
of the benevolence of the young Princess. 

The husband of an actress died under circumstances which left his 
wife in great poverty and when she was in critical health. Distressed 
at what she heard, the Princess obtained <£10 from her mother, added 
a like sum from her own resources, and carried the amount in person 
to the sufferer. 

In 1837, on the 24th of May, the Princess completed her eighteenth 
year and was legally declared of age according to the provisions of the 
Act of Parliament already mentioned. 

On the 2d of June the King was very critically ill. On the 11th he 
declared himself better and sent a letter to the Princess Victoria offer- 
ing her X 10,000 a year. This letter was placed in charge of Lord 
Oonyngham with instructions to give it directly into the hands of the 
Princess, for the King had never mastered his dislike for the Duchess 
of Kent. The Princess took the despatch, the offer was accepted. 
But it was never to be fulfilled. On the 18th of June the King was 
sinking fast. The Duke of Wellington asked Greville if Melbourne 
fyid had any communication with Princess Victoria. For " he ought," 

id the Duke. " I was in constant communication with the present 



28 



VICTORIA. 



King for a month before George IV. died." Two days later it was all 



over. 



A pretty story is told of how the young girl came down in the mid- 
dle of the night, summoned to hear that she was now a queen, and 




QUEEN VICTORIA AT THE TIME OF HER ACCESSION. 



how she stood in slippered feet and a white robe, her hair down her 
back, while the kneeling great men who had brought the news to her, 
hailed her as their sovereign. 

The King died at twenty minutes after two on the morning of June 



VICTORIA. 29 

20th. The young Queen met her Council at Kensington Palace, at 
eleven o'clock on the morning of the same day. 

The accession of Queen Victoria took place at a fortunate time. 
England was at peace with all foreign powers, and with the exception 
of Canada the colonies were undisturbed. 

The coronation of Victoria took place a year after the accession. 
"We may date from the accession of Queen Victoria, not merely the 
revival of the sentiment of English loyalty, which the personal influ- 
ence and example of her two uncles had well-nigh extinguished, but 
the inauguration of the era of popular statesmanship." 

Before her time, politics had been enjoyed as the monopoly of the 
great houses and the throne. England had been ruled from the crown 
or by territorial aristocracy. George III., George IV., and William 
IV., were constantly quarrelling with their ministers, and waging war 
with the House of Commons. They had each and every one of them 
claimed the right to select or dismiss the ministers. The Reform bill 
of 1832 had introduced revolution in the government. England was 
for the first time self-governed, and the population was represented in 
the councils of kings. Had Victoria not been what she was, or had 
she adopted the aggressive traditions of her grandfather, the Third 
George, her accession might have been fatal to the freedom of her sub- 
jects. But she had good advisers and let it be known that she intended 
to reign only as a constitutional sovereign. Popular legislation had 
already begun — there was the Corporation Reform bill, a bill for the 
emancipation of slaves, a bill for shortening the hoars of factory labor, 
the new poor law, the registration act, the reduction of the newspaper 
stamp, and a variety of proposals for church reform. 

The Coronation took place on the 28th of June, 1837. The first act 
was that which is called "the Recognition." Accompanied by some of 
the chief civil dignitaries, the Archbishop of Canterbury advanced and 
said, "Sirs, I here present unto you Queen Victoria, the undoubted 
Queen of this realm ; wherefore, all you who are come this day to do 
your homage, are you willing to do the same?" There were loud cries 
of " God save Queen Victoria ! " The strictly religious part of the 
ceremony followed, and at the conclusion of a sermon by the Bishop of 
London, the oath was administered. Her Majesty after kneeling, 
seated herself in the historic chair of Edward I., and the Dukes of 
Buccleuch and Rutland, and the Marquises of Anglesey and Exeter 
held a cloth of gold over her head. The Dean of Westminster next 
annointed the head and hands of the Queen. A prayer or blessing 
was then uttered, and the investiture with the Royal Robe, the render- 



30 VICTORIA. 

ing of the Orb, and the delivery of the Ring and Sceptre were the 
next ceremonies. Then came the placing of the crown on the Queen's 
head. As the untried and innocent young girl knelt there surrounded 
by all the panoply and pomp of power, a ray of sunlight is said to have 
fallen across her face, and being reflected from the diamonds in the 
crown, invested her with a sort of halo. At the same moment, the 
peers assumed their coronets, the Bishops their caps, and the Kings-of- 
arms their crowns. Trumpets sounded, drums beat, guns were fired, 
and loud cheers rose from every part of Westminster Abbey where the 
ceremony took place. Then came the Benediction, the Enthroning, 
and the formal rendering of homage, and Victoria was Queen indeed. 
On November 30th, 1837, the Queen opened her first Parliament in 
person. In the House of Commons, signs of disunion in the Minister- 
ial party were apparent. Three amendments to the address embody- 
ing the principles of the radical party, who, having asserted their ex- 
istence at the time of the Reform bill, had accepted that measure only 
as an instalment, and now meant to insist upon new and harsher legis- 
lation, were either rejected by a majority or else not pressed to a divis- 
ion. The government was further weakened by the mishaps in Canada 
under Lord Durham. Early in the year following it was evident that 
the Tory reaction was genuine. The government introduced the Ja- 
maica bill to suspend the constitution in that island. Its second read- 
ing passed only by a small majority, which was practically a defeat. 
Lord Melbourne resigned, advising the Queen to send for the Duke of 
Wellington. Sir Robert Peel undertook to form a government. 

It was then that the Queen gave proof that she possessed an inde- 
pendent will and meant to assert it. Sir Robert Peel demanded as a 
mark of her confidence, and as it was his right to do, that Her 
Majesty should dismiss certain ladies related to members of the late 
ministry and who enjoyed high offices in her household. The Queen 
refused and persisted in her refusal. Sir Robert Peel withdrew, and 
Lord Melbourne and his colleagues assumed office again. 

The great figures of Gladstone and Disraeli have occupied such promi- 
nent positions in English politics during the reign of Queen Victoria, 
that it seems necessary to make reference to their rise as politicians. 
At this period both sat on the conservative side of the House. But 
their conservatism was of two different orders ; Gladstone's being of 
the steady, orthodox kind, while Disraeli's shot forth novelties touch- 
ing autocracy in one direction, and on democratic power in another. 

The term " Conservative " arose about the beginning of the Queen's 
reign, or not long before. Since 1832, also, it had not been unusual 



32 VICTORIA. 

for certain enthusiasts of the opposite party to call themselves Liberals. 
But the older members of both bodies preferred the historic appella- 
tions of Whig and Tory. "Radical" was another term belonging to 
the same epoch. The future of these two young men, Gladstone 




THE QUEEN IN THE ROYAL GALLERY, ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL. 

and Disraeli, is world history, and they are mentioned in this place only 
because no history of Victoria be it never so limited as to size, would 
seem complete with the names, at least, in it of Lord Beaconsfielcl and 
the Gladstone. Meanwhile other events of importance and of great 



VICTORIA. 33 

interest had happened in the life of the Queen. When in 1836 it be- 
came evident that the Princess Victoria would in all probability suc- 
ceed to the throne, her uncle, King Leopold, consulted with his friend 
and adviser, Baron von Stockmar, as to a possible husband for his 
niece. Stockmar thought well of the young Prince of Saxe-Coburg. 
A visit to Kensington Palace was arranged, and Albert came to Eng- 
land with his father and brother in May, 1836. The Prince made a 
very favorable impression on the Princess. During the next few years 
the Prince pursued his studies in Germany, winning the highest praises 
from his instructors. 

While there was no formal engagement, it came to be gradually un- 
derstood that the English Queen and the Saxon Prince stood in a cer- 
tain relation of mutual fidelity, though not of an absolutely binding 
order. Attached as she was to the Prince, the Queen desired to 
postpone the marriage a few years, partly because of her cousin's 
youth. 

But a visit of Albert to Windsor Castle in October, 1839, decided 
the matter. All previous hesitation disappeared, and on the 14th of 
October, the Queen informed Lord Melbourne that she had made up 
her mind. 

On the 15th, she wrote to Baron Stockmar : 

"I do feel so guilty, I know not how to begin my letter, but I think 
the news it will contain will be sufficient to insure your forgiveness. 
Albert has completely won my heart, and all was settled between us 

this morning I feel certain he will make me very happy. 

I wish I could say I felt as certain of my making him happ}^ but I 
shall do my best. Uncle Leopold must tell you all about the details, 
which I have not time to do." 

The marriage was celebrated in the Chapel Royal, St. James's, on 
the 10th of February, 1840. 

The Queen looked excited and nervous, and according to a letter 
from the Dowager Lady Lyttelton (one of the ladies-in-waiting), her 
eyes were swollen with weeping, although great happiness appeared in 
her countenance. The Duchess of Kent is said to have been discon- 
solate and distressed. 

As Her Majesty was returning to Buckingham Palace, it was re- 
marked that the paleness and anxiety of the morning had given place 
to a bright flush and a more unrestrained and joyous manner. After 
the wedding breakfast the newly married couple left for Windsor, on 
reaching which they found the town brilliantly illuminated. A cor- 
dial reception from the residents and the Eton boys sufficiently de 



34 VICTORIA. 

clared the sentiment of affectionate respect with which the Queen and 
the Prince were regarded in the Royal Borough. 

Notwithstanding the cordiality with which the prince was received 
everywhere, it soon became apparent that the husband of the Queen 
was the object of much national suspicion. It was regretted, after the 
event, that the Queen had not married an English Prince. It was 
said that the influence of a foreign prince on the counsels of the 
crown would be dangerous to the empire. The Prince found his posi- 
tion one of great difficulty. 

In this critical moment the Queen showed rare tact and determina- 
tion. She declined to yield to those who were bent on detaching the 
Prince as much as possible from herself. By her marriage vow she 
had sworn to honor and obey him, and she meant to faithfully execute 
that vow. 

The Prince profited much from the advice of Baron Stockmar, 
and gradually found his path clear before him. Both the Queen and 
her husband were much indebted to Lord Melbourne, who set the ex- 
ample of showing equal respect to the Royal Consort, and whose ex- 
ample was bound to influence those round him. 

The Prince's skill in music and painting were the means of gaining 
for him a certain amount of popularity. He was appointed one of the 
directors of the ancient concerts, and he showed his interest in public 
questions, by presiding at a meeting to promote the abolition of the 
slave trade. He was gradually winning his way. 

On the 10th of June, 1840, the Queen driving with Prince Albert 
was twice fired at by a pot-boy, seventeen years of age, named Ed- 
ward Oxford. She was escorted home by a crowd consisting of all 
classes, whose repeated shouts evinced their cordiality. It was not the 
only attempt that was to be made on her life, though in this case the 
boy Oxford was adjudged insane and was ordered to be kept in 
asylum during Her Majesty's pleasure. Later he was sent from the 
country. 

This same summer it appeared advisable that a Regency should be 
appointed in consideration of the Queen's delicate state of health. The 
Queen's own wish w T as that Prince Albert should be named as Regent, 
but it was necessary to carry a bill to this effect through Parliament. 
A bill appointing the Prince to the office of Regent was introduced 
and carried. On the 11th of September, he was made a member of 
the Privy Council. He and the Queen were then residing at Windsor. 
But an event was now approaching which rendered a return to Buck- 
ingham Palace advisable. 



36 VICTORIA. 

On the 21st of November, 1840, the Princess Royal was born. The 
child was baptized on the 10th of February, the first anniversary 
of the Queen's marriage, and was called Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa. 

During the last two years the Queen had been made anxious by af- 
fairs in the East. Egypt had annexed Syria, and Ibrahim Pasha 
repeatedly worsted the Ottoman forces. A compromise had been ef- 
fected in 1833. But in 1839 Mehemit Ali again rose. Mahmond II. 
expired July 1st, shortly after being defeated in Syria. A few days 
after his death the Capitan Pasha, or Lord High Admiral, deserted to 
Mehemit Ali with the whole Turkish fleet, and the Ottoman Empire 
might have been rent to fragments but for the intervention of England, 
Russia, Austria and Prussia. Thus ass : sted, the young Turkish Sultan, 
Abdul-Medjid pronounced the deposition of the Egyptian. Beyrout was 
bombarded by a combined English, Austrian and Turkish fleet, and 
captured. Other successes followed, and Mehemit Ali made his sub- 
mission. There had been no little danger of a rupture with France, 
owing to the different views of the Eastern question taken by that 
Power and England, and M. Guizot was sent on a special mission to 
London in the hope of composing matters. The Queen received him 
graciously, and shortly afterward the cloud passed away, and soon 
after the birth of the Princess Royal, all menace of a European war had 
disappeared. 

The Tractarian movement caused considerable annoyance, and many 
other perplexities starting up before the young Queen, it was fortunate 
that she had an intermediary so well qualified to fill the part, as Prince 
Albert. 

It was in 1841, the } T ear of the final defeat of the Melbourne Min- 
istry, that Prince Albert for the first time figured somewhat prominently. 

Soon after the royal marriage, Lord Melbourne expressed to Albert 
his conviction that the time had come when the court should treat all 
parties, especial^ the Tories, in the spirit of a general amnesty. The 
following year Lord Melbourne, who had all along been most anxious 
that the Queen should tell the Prince and show him eveiwthing con- 
nected with public affairs, "intimated that the political crisis could no 
longer be delayed. It was," His Lordship said, " the Prince's duty to 
prepare the Queen for the possible eventuality." A letter written by 
Baron Stockmar to the Prince about this period is memorable not only 
for the prudence of its advice, but because it embodies the principles 
on which the Prince Consort conscientiously acted. " If," wrote the 
Baron, "things come to a change of Ministry, then the great axiom, 
irrefragably one and the same for all Ministries, is this — viz, the Crown 




THE PRINCE CONSORT. 



38 TIC TORI A. 

supports frankly, honorably and with all its might, the Ministry of the 
time, whatever it be, so long as it commands a majority and governs 
with integrity, for the welfare and advancement of the country. A 
King who, as a constitutional King, either cannot or will not carry this 
maxim into practice, deliberately descends from the lofty pedestal on 
which the constitution has placed him to the lower one of a mere party 
chief. Be you, therefore, the constitutional genius of the Queen. Do 
not content yourself with merely whispering this maxim in her ear 
when circumstances serve, but strive to carry it out into practice at the 
right time and by the worthiest means." 

The severance of the official relations which had existed between the 
Queen and Lord Melbourne, by the defeat of the government of the 
latter was naturally a blow. It was, however, greatly mitigated by the 
consciousness that in her husband she had a constitutional counsellor 
not only safe, but one who commanded the confidence of the country 
as well. 

On the 9th of November, 1841, a son was born to the Queen and the 
Prince Consort. There was great rejoicing. Shortly after the birth 
the Queen created the infant Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, in 
addition to the other titles which as heir-apparent the child had in- 
herited. The christening took place on the 25th of January, 1842, in 
Saint George's Chapel, Windsor, in the midst of pomp and splendor. 

In that same year other attempts were made on the life of the Queen, 
and, as is usual in so many such cases, from a species of desire for 
notoriety rather than personal hatred. 

On the 29th of May a young man named John Francis attacked the 
Royal party while they were returning from the Chapel Royal, St. 
James's Palace. As they were driving Francis shot at them. Having 
been found guilty he was condemned to death, but the sentence was 
commuted to imprisonment for life. The very day after the commuta- 
tion became known, another attempt was made by a hunchback named 
Bean, who was frustrated by a boy standing near, one Dassett. 

In all of these attempts on her life the Queen displayed rare courage, 
and was more sad at the thought of any one desiring her death, than 
terrified by the attacks themselves. She wished for the love and con- 
fidence of her people, and the attempts to remove her by murder, caused 
her to feel that she had not succeeded in her benevolent desires. 

It was in this year, 1842, that the Queen and the Prince Consort 
visited Scotland for the first time, a country which immediately made 
the favorable impression that soon deepened into an intense affection. 
The trip was something more than a pleasure tour, for the personal 



VICTORIA. 



39 



presence of the Queen and her husband, had the effect of allaying the 
Chartist disaffection to the crowa, of which the West of Scotland was 
in a way the headquarters. 

Perhaps the culminating triumph of the first seven years of the 




Queen's reign was that which Her Majesty achieved on October 28, 
1844, when she opened the new Royal Exchange, in London. "Noth- 
ing," Her Majesty wrote to her uncle Leopold the next day, "ever went 
off better, and the procession there, as well as the proceedings at the 



40 VICTORIA. 

building, were splendid and royal in the extreme. It was a fine and 
gratifying sight to see the myriads of people assembled, more than at 
the coronation even, and all in such good humor and so loyal. I seldom 
remember being so pleased with any public show, and my beloved Albert 
was most enthusiastically received by the people. * * * 

" The articles in the papers, too, are most kind and gratifying. They 
say no sovereign was ever more loved than I am (I am bold enough to 
say), and this because of our happy domestic home and the good ex- 
ample it presents." " The feeling," comments Theodore Martin on this 
extract from the Queen's book, " to which voice was thus given by the 
press, had taken widemost in the country. It was based upon two 
grounds — the exemplary home life of the Queen and the Prince and 
the purely constitutional attitude with relation to political parties which 
had been maintained by the sovereign." 

During the first few years of her reign the Queen had not the benefit 
of the poetic eulogiums which are expected in a court which maintains 
a Poet Laureate. Southey, the Laureate, still lived, but his mental 
condition for some time had rendered intellectual work out of the ques- 
tion. Leigh Hunt, however, addressed some lines to Her Majesty, and 
alluding to the birth of the Princess Alice, which event occurred on 
the 25th of April, 1843,.he sang with considerable beauty. Speaking 
of the Queen herself, he writes : 

"May her own soul, this instant, while I sing 
Be smiling, as beneath some angel's wing, 
O'er the dear life in life, the small, sweet, new 
Unselfish self, the filial self of two, 
Bliss of her future eyes, her pillowed gaze, 
On whom a mother's heart thinks close and prays." 

Soon after the birth of the child, the Queen wrote to the King of the 
Belgians : 

" Our little baby is to be called Alice, an old English name, and the 
other names are to be Maud (another old English name, and the same 
as Matilda), and Mary, as she was born on aunt Gloucester's birthday." 

There were now three children. 

During the next few years the life of the English Queen, if not un- 
eventful, was at least not monotonous. The links of affection which 
bound her to her people had been drawn closer by the birth of five 
children — that of the Princess Royal in 1840, of the Prince of Wales 
in 1841, of Princess Alice in 1843, of the Duke of Edinburgh in 1844 
and of the Princess Helena in 1846. 



42 



VICTORIA. 



The four remaining children, Princess Louise, Prince Arthur, Prince 
Leopold and Princess Beatrice, were born between 1848 and 1857. 
The existence of the royal family much resembled that of many of 




THE PRINCESS ALICE. 



the more considerable of the Queen's subjects. There was the season 

in London, graced by the court ceremonials, in which Her Majesty and 

the Prince Consort took a conspicuous part, and after the season was 

"tr, there were journeys to Scotland, sometimes to Ireland and occa- 




THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 



44 



VICTORIA. 



sionally to the Continent, followed by a brief period of residence at 
Osborne, in the Isle of Wight — purchased from Lady Isabella Blatch- 
ford, in 1844 — its grounds being exquisitely laid out under the super- 
intendence of and from the designs of Prince Albert himself, on a long 
stay at Windsor. 

It would be impossible to examine with any degree of exhaustive- 
ness, the many events of even personal interest in the Queen's life. 




MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS ALICE. 



There were times of tremendous moment and hours of happy home 
life, wherein husband and children were all in all. Politics ran high 
and the different factions were bitterly opposed to one another. The 
Conservatives under Peel were in power, and they found that they had 
a troublous condition of affairs to meet. At home there were scarcity 
of work, low wages, while food was held at exorbitant prices. 



VICTORIA. 



45 



The defeat and resignation of the Peel government came in 1846, 
consequent on its change of opinion on the subject of protection. 
Home affairs had till then monopolized the interest of English politics, 
and it would be impossible to enter into the question of the connection 
of Her Majesty with these, without opening what will long continue to 
be a vexed chapter in modern British history. It has, however, become 
tolerably clear, from correspondence since published, that during all 
these years the Queen was much more subject than had at one time 




been supposed, to the political influence of Prince Albert, and especially 
of Baron Stockmar and King Leopold. Thus the jealousy which still 
lingered in the national heart toward the Prince, and the reserve with 
which he was treated by Lord Palmerston, both then and later on, is 
neither unexplained nor altogether unjustified. 

In 1845 and 1846 the condition of England and Ireland was highly 
critical. In the former country there w r as great social distress; in the 
latter there were both distress and disaffection, and the Queen wag 



46 



VICTORIA. 



obliged indefinitely to postpone her visit to her subjects on the other 
side of St. George's Channel. 

Abroad, England was involved in a serious Chinese war. In Afghan- 
istan, the greatest disaster which ever befell the British army was im- 
pending. The presence of the English fleet in the Tagus alone pre- 




vented a Portuguese insurrection. Spain was distracted by a ruthless 
civil war. America was exasperated against England on account of 
the right claimed by British cruisers, and a question as to the marine 
frontier of a most urgent character, was being pressed on for settlement. 
It seemed as if national bankruptcy were imminent. 

The income tax rose to 7d. on the pound sterling on all incomes 
above .£150, and the Queen greatly increased her popularity by declin- 
ing to exercise her royal right of indemnity from the burden. 




CHRISTENING OF THE PRINCESS LOUISE. 



48 VICTORIA. 

Together with the Prince, she did all that she could to give a stimulus 
to trade by court festivities. Dinners, concerts and balls followed fast 
one upon another. The Queen and Prince Albert went in state to a 
ball given at Co vent Garden Theatre for the relief of the Spitalfields 
weavers. A magnificent bal costume had been given at Buckingham 
Palace with a similar object a fortnight before. 

Lord John Russell went into power in 1846. That same year the 
foreign policy of the country caused great anxiety to the Queen. 
France was unfriendly, while in Spain, the question of the marriage of 
Queen Isabella produced a serious estrangement between the two 
nations. Suddenly it was announced that the Queen of Spain was 
about to marry her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz, and that her sister, the 
Infanta, was at the same time to become the wife of the Due de Mont- 
pensier. The treaty of Utrecht had been construed to prohibit inter- 
marriages between the Royal families of France and Spain. 

If the Queen of Spain had no issue, the crown descended to the heir 
of her sister, and that sister with a Royal French husband might have 
an heir, to whom accession to both the thrones of France and Spain 
might be possible. 

These Spanish marriages which took place shortl} r after the accession 
to power of Lord Russell, with Lord Palmerston at the Foreign office, 
violated the principles of existing European treaties, and were the pre- 
lude to the greatest diplomatic complications which the Queen of Eng- 
land had ever had to deal. 

But such events as the Polish insurrection and the Portuguese diffi- 
culty, which immediately followed these marriages, served not only to 
try the powers of the Queen, but also demonstrated that she possessed 
capacities of a high order. In 1874 there were published by Mr. Theo- 
dore Martin for the first time, in his "Life of the Prince Consort," a 
series of interesting memoranda on the relations of England with Italy 
and Germany, which, read in connection with the international sym- 
pathies that Her Majesty at a later period developed, are significant 
proofs of the extent to which the Queen was indoctrinated with the 
ideas of her husband. We may incidentally notice that in July, 1847, 
the Prince was elected and installed as Chancellor of Cambridge Uni- 
versity, the installation ode being written by the then Poet Laureate, 
Wordsworth. The record of the observed of all observers in this 
ceremony is interesting. "I cannot say," Her Majesty writes in her 
diary the same day, "how it agitated and embarrassed me to have to 
receive the address and hear it read by my beloved Albert, who walked 
in at the head of the University, and who looked dear and beautiful in 




COSTUME BALL IN BUCKINGHAM PALACE, 



bO VICTORIA. 

his robes, which were carried by Colonel Phipps and Colonel Seymour. 
Albert went through it all admirably — almost absurd, however, as it 
was for us. He gave me the address, and I read the answer ; a few 
kissed hands, and then Albert dined with the University." 

Two years later the Queen and Prince went to Ireland. "Such a 
day of jubilee," wrote the London Times, of the royal entry to the Irish 
metropolis, " has never been beheld in the ancient capital of Ireland 
since first it arose from the banks of the Liffey. No ovation of olden 
Rome, enriched with the spoil of conquered nations and illustrated by 
the wealth of captured kings, was so glorious as the triumphant entry 
of Queen Victoria into Dublin." 

In 1849 Prince Albert wrote to the Dowager Duchess of Gotha 
announcing a very important event in the Queen's family. 

" The children," he writes, " grow more than well. Bertie (the 
Prince of Wales) will be given over in a few weeks into the hands of a 
tutor, whom we have found in a Mr. Birch." Yet Mr. Birch can 
hardly be credited, highly competent as he was, with being the choice 
of the Queen. Her Majesty had been jealous in controlling the edu- 
cation of her children, but that of the Prince of Wales was determined 
by her Consort. 

Prince Albert decided that this education must be such as would 
prepare the heir-apparent for taking his position in a changeful state 
of society whose institutions were in a transitory condition. Ro} r alty 
no longer ruled, but the people, and a King was not the autocrat he 
had once been, but the conserver of the peoples' rights and privileges. 

"The proper duty of sovereigns in this country," wrote Stockmar, 
"is not to take the lead in change, but to act as a balance wheel on the 
movements of the social body." Above all, it was determined that the 
education of the young Prince should be English, and not foreign. 
Furnished with these principles to guide him, Mr. Birch entered upon 
his task. 

Again in 1849 the life of the Queen was threatened. An Irishman 
named Hamilton, craving notoriety, attempted to shoot her as she was 
driving with her children. Without change of countenance Her 
Majesty engaged the attention of the children, and with a sign directed 
the coachman to drive on as though nothing had happened. 

That year the Queen visited Ireland which was in a discontented 
state. 

" It is done," wrote Lady Lyttleton, who watched the squadron sail 
off, " England's fate is afloat." There was, however, no serious cause 
for anxiety. The Queen was everywhere received with favor. 



VICTORIA. 



51 



This visit had two good results. It brought home to the minds of 
the Irish people that their country and their affairs were of personal 
concern to the Queen, and it demonstrated to the rest of the United 
Kingdom the fact that the attachment of the Irish people to the Mon- 
archy was still strong. After that came the annual visit to Scotland. 
For Scotland was the country of the Queen's heart. For many years 
of her married life she spent some weeks and often months, even sum- 
mer and autumn, at or near Balmoral Castle, and after her widowhood 
it was in Scotland that she chiefly lived. 




BALMORAL CASTLE, FBOM THE SOUTHWEST. 



On the 1st of May, 1850, the Duke of Conn aught was born. His 
birthday was coincident with that of the Duke of Wellington, and he 
had for his sponsors two of the most illustrious soldiers of Europe — 
the Iron Duke himself, and Prince William of Prussia, afterward 
Emperor of Germany. In the summer of this year, died the kind- 
hearted Duke of Cambridge, uncle to the Queen. Her majesty was 
assiduous in her attentions to the uncle she loved so well, and one of 
her visits to his bedside accidently exposed her to a cowardly out- 
rage. As she was leaving Cambridge House one Robert Pate, formerly 



52 VICTOEIA. 

a lieutenant in the army, stepped forward and struck her in the face 
with a cane. 

On May 1st, 1851, the long cherished ambition of the Prince Consort 
was carried out in the opening of the Crystal Palace exhibition. 

As might have been expected, the London season of the Exhibition 
year was a particularly brilliant one. It was marked by eccentricity 
and gaiety. This was the season when " the Spanish beautjr," Mad- 
emoiselle cle Montijo, afterward Empress of the French, shone meteor- 
like in London. 

The Crystal Palace was an immense success, and further than stimu- 
lating subsequent trade, the weekly takings at the gates were never less 
than fifty thousand dollars, of our money, while in one special week it 
amounted to four times that amount. 

Eighteen hundred and fifty-two was a year of excitement and panic 
at home and abroad. The Queen was also to sustain a great loss in 
the death of the Duke of Wellington. 

At the time this occurred Her Majesty was in the Scotch Highlands. 
"I had just," she wrote in her diary, "sat down to sketch when 
Mackenzie returned bringing letters. Among them there was one from 
Lord Derby, which I tore open, and alas ! it contained the confirma- 
tion of the fatal news that Britain's pride, her glory, her hero, the 
greatest man she ever had produced, was no more. Sad day! Great 
and irreparable national loss. * * * One cannot think of this country 
without the Duke, an immortal hero. The Crown never found, I fear 
never will, so devoted, loyal and faithful a subject, so stanch a sup- 
porter. * . * * His experience and knowledge of the past were so great, 
too. He was a link which connected us with bygone times — with the 
last century. Not an eye will be dry in the whole country." 

Eighteen hundred and fifty-two was also called the last year of " The 
Great Peace." The Tory Cabinet fell, the French Republic was trans- 
formed into the Second Empire, gold was discovered in Australia, and 
in the air were the first faint rumblings of the Crimean War. 

When Parliament was prorogued on the 20th of August, 1853, the 
following passage was inserted in the Queen's speech : 

"It is with deep interest and concern that Her Majesty has viewed 
the serious misunderstanding which has recently risen between Russia 
and the Ottoman Porte. The Emperor of the French has united with 
her majesty in earnest endeavors to reconcile differences, the continu- 
ance of which might involve Europe in war." 

The war to which these differences led, has ever been regarded by 
the Queen as the heart-breaking calamity of her reign. 



VICTORIA. 



53 



On the 7th of April another Prince was born to the Royal couple. 
The child was named after the Queen's uncle, Leopold, the King of the 
Belgians. 

"It" [Leopold], she writes, "is a name which is dearest to me after 




THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 



Albert, and one which recalls the almost only happy days of my saol 
childhood." The Prince's other names were to be George, Duncan, 
and Albert — George, after the King of Hanover, and Duncan, "a com- 
pliment to dear Scotland." This Prince was the Duke of Albany. 
But the rumors of war were louder and more persistent, and war 



54 



VICTORIA. 



was declared by England against Russia on the 28th of March, and by- 
France on the 27th, the military alliance between the two powers be- 
ing signed on the 12th. Lord Raglan was appointed to command the 
British troops, Marshal St. Arnand headed those of France. 




THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT. 



On the 9th of April, the four powers, England, France, Austria and 
Prussia signed a Protocol at Vienna, which bound them " to remain 
united in maintaining the integrity of Turkey, and in safe-guarding 
under the guarantee of Europe, the liberties .of her Christian inhabit- 
ants, by every means compatible with the independence of the Sultan; 
to enter into no arrangement with Russia or any other Power which 



VICTORIA. 55 

might be inconsistent with this object, without first of all discussing it 
in concert." 

The Cross and Crescent fought, and the war had to be financed and 
the country reconciled to increased taxation. 

There were attacks on the loyalty of Prince Albert which roused 




THE QUEEN AND THE REAPERS AT BLAIR CASTLE. 

the Queen, and she retorted that the country itself was "loyal, but a 
little mad." There was the battle of Alma, Balaklava, the siege of 
Sebastopol, Inkerman. 

While the bloody contest was going on, the Queen endeared 
herself to her subjects by losing no opportunity of exhibiting her 
sympathies with those at home whose relatives were ordered on foreign 
service. " Let Mrs. Herbert," she wrote to Mr. Sidney Herbert, 
Secretary for War, "know that I wish Miss Nightingale and other 
ladies to tell these poor, noble, wounded and sick men, that no one 
takes a warmer interest and feels more for their sufferings and admires 
4 



56 VICTORIA. 

their courage and heroism, more than their Queen. Day and night she 
thinks of her beloved troops. So does the Prince." 

Meantime diplomacy was appealed to to end the war. " If Austria 
did her duty," writes the Queen, " she might have prevented much of 
this bloodshed. Instead of this, her Generals do nothing but juggle 
the Turks of the Principalities, and the Government shuffles about, 
making advances and then retreating." 

On the 5th of November Miss Nightingale reached the scene of her 
labors, and found the hospitals veritable pest houses into which were 
brought the wounded from Balaklava where "some one had blundered," 
and the "noble six hundred" rode into the "valley of death." 

The noble work done by Florence Nightingale will never be forgot- 
ten, and well might the Queen present her with an order equal to that 
of Knighthood. 

Lord Palmerston was now Prime Minister, and his strength was 
proven as never before. Lord Raglan had died, and was said to have 
been almost as incompetent as the commander of the French army, St. 
Arnaud. And the political wrangling kept up. 

Early in 1855 Her Majesty became anxious as to how the year was 
to be financiered. She was in favor of Gladstone's policy, which was 
to meet expenditure out of current revenue. But the cost of the cam- 
paign was so enormous, that it was impossible to increase the taxation 
so as to cover it. The Queen had much to worry her, and at her heart 
was the welfare of her soldiers who were suffering for want of many 
requisites. 

" I myself," said Queen Elizabeth to her troops at Tilbury, " will be 
your general and your judge, and the re warder of every one of your 
virtues in the field." 

If Queen Victoria has never either in statecraft or power attained 
the position held by Elizabeth, she did not fail to emulate her in her 
devotion to the gallant men who bled and died for England in the deso- 
late Chersonese. She visited the sick and wounded who came to Eng- 
land from the field of battle, and cheered them as a good woman may 
cheer a hero, not so much as a Queen may flatter a soldier. 

The French Empress, Eugenie cli Montijo that had been, pressed the 
Emperor to go to the field and the Queen was alarmed because she saw 
infinite danger from the scheme. The Emperor would naturally desire 
to take supreme command of both the French and the English troops, 
and the English people would not permit the British troops to serve 
under a foreign sovereign. 

The Queen invited the Emperor and Empress to visit her, it having 




THE QUEEN DISTRIBUTING THE CRIMEAN MEDAL. 



58 VICTORIA. 

been suggested to her that she might dissuade the Emperor from his 
plan. 

The visit of the French Imperial pair was made much of in London, 
and the Queen invested Louis Napoleon with the Order of the Garter. 

In August, the Queen and the Prince Consort returned the visit, ac- 
companied by the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales. 

Writing to the Dowager Duchess of Coburg on the 30th of August, 
Prince Albert says : 

" We purpose making our escape on the 5th (September) to our 
mountain home, Balmoral. We are sorely in want of moral rest and 
bodily exercise." 

So Paris, with its flattering crowds, became a thing of the past. 

On the 10th the Prince writes to Stockmar : 

-'Prince Fritz William comes here to-morrow evening. I have re- 
ceived a very friendly letter from the Princess of Prussia." 

The young Prussian Prince was the only possible suitor for the 
Princess Royal, who was now sixteen } T ears of age. On the 20th of 
September the Prince laid his proposal of marriage before the Queen 
and her husband, and they accepted it so far as they were concerned, 
but asked him not to speak to the Princess on the subject, till after she 
had been confirmed. " Our Fritz," as the Prince was called, was no idle 
youth of fashion, and he had gone through a hard experience in army 
life. He was then twenty -three, and the heir to the throne of Prussia. 

But while this tender episode was going on, news from the field of 
battle was exciting. 

On the night of September 10, came the news of the capture of Se- 
bastopol, and it is thus notified in the royal journal of that date : 
" Our delight was great, but we could hardly believe the good news, 
and from having so long so anxiously expected it, one could not realize 
the actual fact. Albert said they could go at once and light the bon- 
fire which had been prepared when the false report of the fall of the 
town arrived last year, and had remained ever since waiting to be lit. 
In a few minutes Albert and all the gentlemen, in every species of at- 
tire, sallied forth, followed by all the servants, and gradually by all 
the population of the village, up to the top of the cairn. We waited 
and saw them light the bonfire, accompanied by general cheering." 

When Lord Raglan died, General Simpson, who had been chief of 
his staff, was appointed to succeed him. He was less capable than his 
predecessor, but a good-natured, pliable man who was not likely to be 
troublesome to the home authorities, and when Sebastopol fell it was 
not the Russians, but Generals Simpson and Pelissier who were para- 



60 VICTORIA. 

lyzed by the catastrophe. Her Majesty was incensed. On the 2d of 
October she wrote to Lord Panmure, saying, "when General Simpson 
telegraphed before that he must wait to know the plans and intentions 
of the Russians, the Queen was tempted to advise a reference to St. 
Petersburg for them." The Queen pressed the War Office to appoint 
a new commander-in-chief. 

General Codrington was appointed chief in command instead of Sir 
Colin Campbell, a strong competent man but who had no " interest," 
and had too strong a will and stubborn nature to be easil} T coerced by 
those at home. 

Sir Colin Campbell returned to England determined to quit the serv- 
ice. The Queen, however, sent for him and persuaded him to alter 
his intentions. She told him of her anxiety as to the fate of her army 
and as a personal favor to herself to go back to the Crimea. To the 
credit of Her Majesty it must be told, that this was the last time that 
Campbell was neglected. It took him forty-six years' hard thankless 
toil to rise to a Lieutenant Colonelcy, in eight years he became a Field 
Marshal. 

On July 3 the Queen reviewed in Windsor Park all the regiments 
returned from the East, and a general order was issued at her com- 
mand, to the army, expressing Her Majesty's admiration of their good 
order, discipline, bravery and patience. "The Queen," the address 
concluded, "deplores the loss of many of her best officers and bravest 
men, but history will consecrate the ground before Sebastopol as the 
grave of heroes." She had already performed a more graceful act in 
receiving the wounded guards at Buckingham Palace. 

"The signing of the Treaty of Peace with Russia," writes Lord Mal- 
mesbury, "was announced by the firing of cannon from the Tower and 
Horse Guards." 

The solitary result of the Crimean war, says Spencer Walpole, was 
to "set back the clock some fourteen years." 

A slight ripple on the calm of the waters, was caused by the suspen- 
sion of diplomatic relations with the United States in 1856. In raising 
recruits under the foreign enlistment act, agents had given this country 
cause to complain of a violation of law. The Queen was distressed. 
But the quarrel was not very deep, and was soon tided over. In 1857 
the Indian Mutiny broke out, and in its suppression the Queen once 
more showed her attachment to her troops and her appreciation of mili- 
tary courage, by instituting the distinction of the Victoria Cross for sig- 
nal acts of valor in the presence of the enemy. 

The suppression of the revolt was followed by the bestowal of a new 




lord Campbell's audience of the queen. 



62 VICTORIA. 

titular honor on the Queen. On November 1, 1858, the Governor 
General of India announced, that henceforth all acts of the government 
of India would be done in the name of the Queen alone, and Her Maj- 
esty thus became Empress of Hindustan. 

And now another Princess was added to the Royal circle. The 
Princess Beatrice was born on the 14th of April, 1857. 

On the 16th of May the Prussian Official Gazette announced the forth- 
coming marriage of the Princess Royal and Prince Frederick William. 

On the 19th of January, 1858, Buckingham Palace was full of guests. 
It was a scene of bustle and excitement awaiting the day of the wed- 
ding. On the 24th, after balls, dinner parties, and dramatic entertain- 
ments, the Queen records in her diary that " this is poor dear Vicky's 
last unmarried day .... an eventful one, reminding me of my own." 

Charming in its simplicity, is the Queen's description of the family 
delight over the wedding gifts. 

On the 25th, the wedding day, the Queen writes, "I felt as if I were 
being married over again myself, only much more nervous, for I had 
not that blessed feeling which I had then, which raises and supports 
me, of giving myself up for life to him, whom I loved and worshipped 
— then and forever." 

The wedding was celebrated in the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace. 

The entrance of the bride with her father and King Leopold, sent a 
flutter of excitement through the brilliant throng there assembled. 
When the Princess passed the Queen she made a deep bow, and as her 
eyes met those of the bridegroom her cheeks flushed crimson. "My 
last fear of being overcome," writes the Queen, "vanished on seeing 
Vicky's quiet, calm and composed manner." 

Through cheering crowds the bride and bridegroom and splendid 
train of wedding guests proceeded to Buckingham Palace, where the 
newly wedded pair and their parents stood on a balcony, and bowed 
their thanks to the applauding populace below. 

Nothing pleased the Queen more than the demeanor of the people. 
Their demonstrations of loyalty have always been most grateful to her. 

On the 1st of February the Queen writes in her diary, "The last 
day of our dear child being with us, which is incredible and makes me 
at times feel sick at heart." 

When the next day came round the Queen's fortitude failed her. 
Mother and daughter were weeping in each other's arms when the 
"dreadful time," as the Queen calls it, arrived, and they had to go 
down into the hall filled with friends and servants, assembled to bid 
farewell to a Princess whom another land must now claim. 




THE QUEEN IN HER STATE ROBES. (1881) 



64 VICTORIA. 

"I clasped her in my arms and blessed her, and knew not what to 
say," writes the Queen. " I kissed good Fritz, and pressed his hand 
again and again." 

The Prince and Princess were gone. London was resplendent with 
decorations and vast crowds bid the newly married pair "good speed." 

When the Prince Consort who had accompanied his daughter and 
son-in-law part of the way returned home, the Queen's grief broke out 
afresh. As for the Prince Consort, he told the Princess in one of his 
letters that the void she had left was not in his heart alone, but in his 
daily life. Nothing but the cordial and brilliant reception which wel- 
comed her in Germany, could have consoled him for the parting from a 
daughter whom he proudly described to her husband, as having "a 
man's head and a child's heart." 

It was the first break in a homelife as simple in affection as the 
homeliest. 

The life of the Queen flowed on in an equable stream. She con- 
tinued to take part in all the great national celebrations of the time, 
opening public edifices and inaugurating popular parks, and, with few 
exceptions, presiding in person at the commencement of the Parlia- 
mentary sessions. 

Although the year 1860 opened brightly for commercial England, 
the Cabinet and Queen were by no means in harmony on Foreign af- 
fairs. Victoria had her ideas on matters and she must be fairly con- 
vinced that she was in the wrong, before she changed her mind. 

A memorable correspondence passed between Queen Victoria and 
President Buchanan, of the United States, in the month of June, 1860. 
It had been stated that the Prince of Wales was about to visit Canada. 
President Buchanan wanted him to extend his trip to Washington. 
" You may be well assured," he wrote to the Queen, "that everywhere 
in this country he will be greeted by the American people in such a 
manner as cannot fail to prove gratifying to Your Majesty." The in- 
vitation was accepted, with the brilliant results that have been incor- 
porated into the annals of the two countries. 

The Prince was so well received in America that it was good humor- 
edly said that he would be lucky if he escaped without being nomi- 
nated for President. He was young and affable, with that good nature, 
and almost democratic urbanity which has distinguished him ever since. 
In the various cities he visited he made the very best impression, and 
not because he was a "live prince," but for his own personal self. 

On the 3d of October he visited President Buchanan and in com- 
pany with him stood uncovered at the tomb of Washington, who had 




PR A WING-ROOM IN BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 



66 VICTORIA. 

wrested the great continent from his great-grandfather. The Duke of 
Newcastle, in reporting on the results of the tour, attributed its suc- 
cess first, to the growing feeling of good will that was springing up be- 
tween Americans and Englishmen, and secondly, to the "very remark- 
able love for jour Majesty personally, which pervaded all classes in this 
country." The President also wrote to the Queen, telling her the 
manner in which the Prince had passed through the visit — always 
dignified, always frank, always affable, so that he "conciliated, wher- 
ever he has been, the kindness and respect of a sensitive and discrim- 
inating people." 

The Queen in her reply said that her son could not sufficiently extol 
the great cordiality with which he had been received ; " whilst as his 
mother, I am most grateful for the kindness shown him, I feel impelled 
to express at the same time how deeply I have been touched by the 
many demonstrations of affection toward myself personally, which his 
presence has called forth." 

The Duke of Newcastle had taken grave responsibility on him in 
connection with the visit, and, as Dr. Acland told Charles Sumner, it 
was therefore a personal triumph for him. The Queen was evidently 
of the same opinion, as on his return she testified the appreciation she 
had for his tact in managing the tour, by conferring on him the Order 
of the Garter. 

Early in May, the Royal family were visited by Prince Louis of 
Hesse-Darmstadt, between whom and the Princess Alice a " natural 
liking" had grown up. In the following November Prince Louis came 
to Windsor as a formal suitor for the hand of the Princess. 

On the 1st of October the Prince Consort narrowly escaped being 
killed during the running away of the horses of his carriage. To save 
himself he jumped from the vehicle and was bruised, though not 
seriously injured. "Oh! God," writes the Queen, "what did I not 
feel! I could only, and do only, allow the feelings of gratitude, not 
those of horror at what might have happened, to fill my mind." 

In testimony of her gratitude she established a " Victoria-Stift," in 
Coburg consisting of the investment of X 1,000. Every year, on the 
1st of October, the anniversary of the Prince's escape, the interest 
from the sum is divided among certain young people, to help them in 
their efforts to earn a livelihood. 

That same autumn the Queen went to German}-, where she now had 
a little grandchild. The Queen, the Prince Consort and the Princess 
Alice left England on the 22d of September. The Princess Frederick 
William was at Coburg to receive them, and here also was the child, 



VICTORIA. 67 

" a fine fat " one, the Queen writes, " very fine shoulders and limbs, 
and a very dear face, like Vicky and Fritz, and also Louise of Baden." 

A meeting with Stockmar, then old and feeble, enhanced the 
pleasure of the visit. It was at Coburg that the accident to the Prince 
Consort occurred, though this previous mention of it seemed better 
than in connection with the enjoyment of her visit. There were quiet, 
happy days with the Princess Royal and her child, the little Prince 
Wilhelm of Prussia, but on the 9th of October the journey home began. 

From her own tranquil island, in the bosom of her loved family, at 
the side of a cherished husband, at the beginning of 1861, the Queen 
looked out upon a strangely disturbed world. 

In Europe, French agents were intriguing with the revolutionary 
parties in Poland, Hungary and the Danubian Principalities. Italian 
conspiracies were being unearthed in Venetia. The misgovernment of 
Turkey was again driving Christian subjects to despair. While here 
in America the sad war of brother against brother was beginning with 
the seceding of the Southern states from those of the North. A sym- 
pathetic allusion to the civil war in America occurs in the Queen's 
speech at the opening of Parliament of that year. 

On the 12th of March the Queen had visited her mother, the 
Duchess of Kent, at Frogmore. She found her suffering from the 
effects of a surgical operation which had been found necessary to 
relieve an abscess of the arm. 

On the 15th Her Majesty and the Prince Consort were inspecting 
the Horticultural Society's gardens at South Kensington when they 
were summoned by Sir James Clark to the bedside of the Duchess. 
They found her dying. 

"I knelt before her," writes the Queen, "kissed her dear hand and 
placed it next my cheek; but though she opened her eyes, she did not, 
I think, know me." 

All through the night the Queen watched beside the bed. At 
eight o'clock next morning, Prince Albert persuaded her to leave her 
mother's room for a little rest. But she could not rest. She insisted 
on returning to the sick room, and when she got there she saw that her 
mother was passing away. The heart-beats grew fainter, the eyes 
slowly closed, and as the clock struck half-past nine, Prince Albert 
took the Queen out of the room and she knew that all was over. 

For forty-one years she had not been parted from her mother save 
for a few short weeks at a time. 

"I seemed," she said, "to have lived through a life, to have grown 
older," there in the chamber of death. 



68 VICTORIA. 

The funeral took place on the 25th, in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, 
where the body was laid till the mausoleum at Frogmore should be built. 

"I and my girls," wrote the Queen on that day to King Leopold, 
"prayed at home together, and dwelt on her happiness and peace." 

On the 2d of April the Princess Frederick William, who had flown 
to her mother in her sorrow, returned to Berlin, and the Queen and 
her husband retired to Osborne where she was a near neighbor of the 
Laureate Tennyson. 

On the 27th of April the Queen announced the approaching mar- 
riage of the Princess Alice and Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt. 

On the 6th of May the Princess was voted a dowry of X 30,000, and 
an annuity of £6,000 a year. 

During Whitsuntide the Queen's birthday was quietly celebrated at 
Osborne, with none of the usual festivities, her holiday being marred 
not only by the nervous depression which affected her after her moth- 
er's death, but also by the illness of Prince Leopold. 

Still sad at heart she struggled bravely to perform her social duties. 
She held two drawing-rooms and two Investitures in June. 

In August it was decided that the Queen should again visit Ireland. 

On the 21st Her Majesty, the Prince Consort, Prince Alfred and the 
Princesses Alice and Helena started. 

On Saturday, the 24th, the Queen visited the Curragh Camp and 
reviewed the troops there. As they passed the cavalry, one of the 
bands began to play an air which had been a favorite with the 
Duchess of Kent. 

" This," the Queen wrote in her diary, " entirely upset me, and the 
tears would have flowed freely had I not checked them by a violent 
effort. But I felt sad the Avhole day till I came to Bertie (the Prince 
of Wales) who looked so well." The Queen thanked Colonel Percy 
"for treating Bertie as he did like any other officer, for I know he 
keeps him up to his work in a way, as General Bruce told me, no one 
else has done ; and yet Bertie likes him very much." The Irish visit 
was of short duration, though everywhere the popularity of the Queen 
was made manifest. The Royal party reached Balmoral on the 30th 
of August. 

During the autumn the Prince of Wales visited Germany, ostensibly 
to be present at the military manoeuvres in the Rhine Provinces, but in 
reality to make the acquaintance of the Princess Alexandra, of Den- 
mark, at Speyer and Heidelberg, where she happened to be staying, and 
where, according to the Prince Consort, " the young people seem to 
have taken a warm liking to each other " when they first met. 



VICTORIA. 69 

At Windsor the Prince Consort now began to make the arrange- 
ments for the approaching marriage of the Princess Alice. He had 
also to see about a journey for Prince Leopold who had not yet regained 
his health. He busied himself also with the alterations and decorations 
of Marlborough House, which was now to be the residence of the Prince 
of Wales. On the 4th of November he inspected the works of Wel- 
lington College. On the 9th the birthday of the Prince of Wales was 
celebrated with a brilliant assembly of guests. 

The death of Prince Ferdinand of Portugal, from typhoid fever, to- 
gether with sad memories of the Duchess of Kent somewhat shadowed 
the festival of the Prince of Wales's fete, and in a few days Her Majesty 
and the Prince Consort had a new shock in hearing of the death of the 
King of Portugal who had fallen a victim to the same dread disease 
that had carried off his brother. The attachment that existed between 
the Prince Consort and the Portuguese branch of the House of Coburg 
was deep and genuine, and the sudden death of King Pedro and his 
brother, weighed heavily on the Royal household. At the same time 
the Crown Princess of Prussia, the Princess Royal, was also suffering 
from illness brought on from fatigue and excitement attendant on the 
ceremonies of the crowning of the King of Prussia on the 18th of Oc- 
tober, and the last letter the Prince ever wrote to Baron Stockmar, in- 
dicates that his daughter's indisposition also weighed on his mind. To 
these troubles were added certain private troubles rather hinted at than 
specified by Sir Theodore Martin. The Prince began to show the wear 
and tear on him, while his new irritability amazed those round him, 
accustomed as all were to his serene temper during the many trials that 
had beset him, his invariable good humor when stung by enemies, and 
his rare patience when tried by political suspicions which for a long 
time pursued him and from which he never wholly freed himself. 

On the 12th of November the Queen remarked that his many and 
various visits to London were making him "low and sad." He had 
been troubled with insomnia, and this now returned, and Her Majesty 
pressed those who could do so, to lighten as much as possible the strain 
on his energies. 

On the 22d of November he inspected the various buildings of Sand- 
hurst Military College in the midst of a pouring rain. On the 23d, 
though complaining of not feeling well he went out shooting with 
Prince Ernest of Leiningen. On the 24th he had rheumatic pains, 
though he accompanied the Queen and her family to Frogmore. The 
next day he went to Cambridge to see the Prince of Wales, who found 
him " greatly out of sorts," and when he came back to Windsor he 



TO VICTORIA. 

could not walk out with the Queen in the afternoon. On the 28th he 
was still worse and was much grieved. On the 1st of December he 
drafted a memorandum and could scarcely hold his pen. On the 2d 
of December Sir James Clark and Dr. Jenner pronounced him to be 
suffering from a low fever. On the 4th the Queen found him " very 
woebegone and wretched." He ate nothing and Dr. Jenner told Her 
Majesty that he must eat, as he was simply starving. The Prince was 
obviously suffering from typhoid, and the Queen was told. On the 7th 
the Queen worked hard, for her husband's pen was no longer at her 
service. " The tears fell fast," she said, as she sat at his bedside and 
thought "of many things." 

On the 11th the Queen noticed that his face "more beautiful than 
ever, had grown so thin." On the 13th Dr. Jenner warned the Queen 
that congestion of the lungs might set in. The next day she was told 
that the crisis was over. She went straight to his bedside. Hour after 
hour she watched there, a loving wife. She saw that he was slowly 
sinking. In the afternoon he knew her and laid his head on her 
shoulder. At last the Queen went to her room, but soon returned. 
She leaned over him and kissed him. "Your own little wife," she 
whispered. 

Early the following morning the Prince Consort passed away, a 
man in every way, a gentleman, a faithful husband, a kind father, a 
prince whose abilities would have been more fully recognized and ap- 
preciated, had he not by reason of his marriage been shadowed hy his 
position — he was not a King, but the husband of a Queen. 

On his death, a wave of sorrow swept over the land. Political 
partisans whose fickleness had harassed the Prince during his life, were 
moved by the story of his last da}~s. The voice of harsh criticism was 
at last silenced. Never was the sympathy of a people with its 
sovereign more complete ; never was that sympathy a greater support. 
" Of the devotion and strength of mind," wrote the London Times of 
that date, "shown by the Princess Alice all through these trying 
scenes, it is impossible to speak too highly. Her Royal Highness has 
indeed felt that it was her place to be a comfort and support to her 
mother in this affliction, and to her dutiful care we perhaps owe it that 
the Queen has borne her loss with exemplary resignation and a com- 
posure, which under so sudden and terrible a bereavement could not 
have been anticipated." 

The Queen seemed to be in dumb despair. She had worshipped her 
husband, and his death left her stranded in her affections. The Duch- 
ess of Cambridge was the first member of the Royal Family who ven- 




THE PRINCESS ALICE READING TO HER FATHER. 



72 



VICTORIA. 



tured to write to her. She described the answer of the Princess Alice 
as " heart-rending." Her Majesty had sunk into apathy, and it was 
with difficulty that the Royal sign manual could be obtained for the 
most urgent business. Lord Granville was the first Minister the 
Queen was able to see, and she transacted some business with him a 




FUNERAL OF THE PRINCE CONSORT : 
Procession in the Nave of St. George's Chapel. 



few days after the Prince's death. But she was a woman of too great 
character to succumb entirely even to a grief that usurped every 
energy of her life. When the first passionate burst was over, she 
called her children round her and with a coolness which gave proof of 
great natural energy, addressed them in solemn and affectionate terms. 
Her Majesty declared to her family that, though she felt crushed by 
the loss of one who had been her companion through life, she knew 
how much was expected of her, and she accordingly called on her 




THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE. 



74 VICTORIA. 

children to give her their assistance, in order that she might do her 
duty to them and the country. Addresses of condolence were for- 
warded from all parts of the Kingdom. 

But there followed with Her Majesty after the artificial energy with 
which she had inspired herself a relapse and reaction— a sort of stupor. 

The Duke of Newcastle, a valued friend of the Prince Consort, had 
a quiet conversation with her early in Januaiy, before she left Wind- 
sor for Osborne. " His account of the Queen," writes Hayward to 
Lady Peel, " is highly favorable. He said his private interview with 
her left him with the very highest opinion of her strength of char- 
acter." But after retiring to Osborne, nervous exhaustion seriously 
impaired the health of the Royal widow. 

"She (Lady Ely) gives a sad report of the poor Queen, who talks 
continually about the Prince and seems to feel comfort in doing so. 
She takes great pleasure in the universal feeling of sympathy for her 
and sorrow for him shown by all classes." 

King Leopold of Belgium came to Osborne in the latter part of 
January and endeavored to arrange with Lord Palmerston the trans- 
action of Ministerial business with the Queen. 

At that time her health was not actually bad, but the King said that 
though she was outwardly composed she was not equal to dining in 
company even with her half-sister, the Princess Hohenlohe and Prince 
Louis of Hesse, who were then at Osborne. She seemed to have de- 
sired no other companionship in the first weeks of her widowhood but 
that of the Princess Alice. 

As to the public aspects of the Queen's married life Count Vitzthum 
writes, "She (the Duchess of Cambridge) spoke with tears in her eyes 
of the almost unparalleled happiness of his (the Prince Consort's) 
twenty years of married life, now brought to such a sudden end. In 
all that clear and sunny sky there was only one cloud. How gladly 
would the Queen have shared her crown with the husband who helped 
her to wear it, and was her all in all ! In vain already, in Sir Robert 
Peel's time, had she expressed her wish to bestow the title of King 
upon her husband. The constitutional scruples of the deceased Tory 
Minister were urged still more emphatically by Lord Palmerston, when, 
later on, the question was again mooted. The promotion of the Prince 
to the title of ' Prince Consort ' was the consequence of a compromise. 
Prince Albert was naturalized in 1840, and obtained in the same year 
by letters patent precedence next to the Queen. Nevertheless he was 
not a British prince, and both at Court and the Priv} 7 Council his eld- 
est son on attaining his majority must have precedence of him. ' Foi 



VICTORIA. 75 

the Prince of Wales,' as the Duke of Cambridge says, • is and remains 
the Prince of Wales.' " 

It was the 23d of December that the remains of the Prince Consort 
were removed from Windsor Castle and temporarily placed in the 
Royal Vault in St. George's Chapel, where they were to lie till the 
erection of a mausoleum for their reception. 

The opening of 1862 promised a year of feverish excitement. In 
the United States the civil war was waging and, as was written, "the 
effects on England are incalculable. Considering the probable loss of 
English trade, we cannot of course proclaim openly the satisfaction we 
(the Tory leaders) naturally feel at the collapse of Republican institu- 
tions. But privately speaking, we can only congratulate ourselves if 
the monarchical principle comes into favor on the other side of the 
Atlantic." 

Parliament opened the 6th of February, and in the speech from the 
Throne, satisfaction was expressed at the termination of the dispute 
with the United States in the "Trent" affair. 

The American war caused many discussions. The Cabinet, as a 
whole, favored the policy of the Queen and the Prince Consort, that of 
complete neutrality. But they were not quite loyal to Her Majesty's 
desire that neutrality should be tempered by generous consideration 
for the unprecedented difficulties in the way of President Lincoln. 
The partisans of the Southern States tried to induce the government 
to declare that the blockade of the Southern ports would not be recog- 
nized. But Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell refused to yield to 
pressure on this point. The withdrawal of the Queen from active 
affairs may be said to have caused at this time a fear that the neutrality 
she advocated might not be too closely respected. 

The opening of the Great Exhibition of 1862 was not a very cheer- 
ful affair. The black liveries of the lackeys who appeared in the grand 
procession reminded the people of the Prince Consort who had been 
the life of the enterprise. Tennyson's fine ode, set to music by Stern- 
dale Bennett, thus alluded to the Prince : — ■ 

"O silent father of our Kings to be, 
Mourned in this golden hour of jubilee, 
For this, for all, we weep our thanks to thee ! 
The world-compelling plan was thine, 
And lo ! the long laborious miles 
Of Palace : lo ! the giant aisles, 
Rich in model and design." 

During the greater part of the year the Queen led a life of absolute 



76 VICTORIA. 

seclusion. The first public sign of her interest in current events was 
given after the Hartley Colliery accident where over two hundred min- 
ers died a lingering death. The Queen nerved herself to make the ex- 
ertion of writing a letter, or, rather, of commanding Colonel Phipps to 
write, expressive of her tenderest sympathy with the widows and moth- 
ers of the victims. "Her own misery," said the Queen, "only makes 
her feel the more for them. Her Majesty hopes that everything will 
be done as far as possible to alleviate their distress, and Her Majesty 
will have a sad satisfaction in assisting such a measure." 

The marriage of the Princess Alice with Louis of Hesse took place 
in private, at Osborne, on the 1st of July. The Queen attended in 
deep mourning. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha gave his niece 
away, and after the ceremony the newly married pair drove quietly off 
to St. Clare, near Ryde, where they remained three days. 

The parting between mother and daughter was a mournful one, and 
yet it may be that the loss of the society of the Princess had a good 
effect on the Queen, as it stimulated her to take a renewed interest in 
life. 

Shortly after this marriage, preparations had to be made for an im- 
portant event in the Royal Family. This was the marriage of the 
Prince of Wales with Alexandra of Denmark. In the autumn the 
Queen visited the parents of the Princess to arrange the preliminaries 
of this alliance. 

The impression which the youth and beauty of the Danish Princess 
made on the Queen was most favorable. 

On the 18th of December the Queen issued from her seclusion to 
superintend the removal of the Prince Consort's remains to Frogmore. 
The mausoleum there had been built by her special directions, as a 
monument of the affection and reverence she and her children bore to 
the dead Prince. 

But for two years after her husband's death the Queen withdrew 
into absolute seclusion, much to the commercial detriment of her peo- 
ple and the inconvenience of the public business. Yet she was not an 
unobservant and unsympathetic spectator of events. When the female 
Blondin was killed in Aston Park while performing on the tight rope, 
and when the disastrous flood at Sheffield took place, she sent addresses 
expressive of her sorrow at the calamities. 

But an event was approaching which diverted the minds of the peo- 
ple, even though the brilliant political career of Disraeli had done 
much to lighten the gloom caused by the Queen's retirement. 

This event was the marriage of the Prince* of Wales which was to 



VICTORIA. 



77 



take place before Easter, 1863. Trade revived, and altogether life 
woke up. 

The Prince was voted £ 100,000 a year, and as he already had 
£60,000 a year from the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, the 




THE PRINCE OF WALES. 



House was asked to vote but £40,000 a year out of the Consolidated 
Fund, For the Princess of Wales a separate allowance of £10,000 a 
year was granted, and in the event of her surviving her husband she 
was to be secured a jointure of £30,000. 
On the 26th of February the Princess left Copenhagen for London. 



78 



VICTORIA. 



On the 5th of March the Squadron was sighted from Sheerness. Next 
morning the Prince met his bride at Gravesend. 

On the 10th the marriage took place in the Chapel Royal at Wind- 
sor. The Queen, robed in deep black, took no part in the ceremony, 
which she witnessed from the Royal closet. 




THE PRINCESS OF WALES. 



The Princess, in magnificent robes, her neck and arms blazing with 
jewels, was led in by her father, Prince Christian of Denmark. The 
choir sang one of the Prince Consort's chorals, Jenny Lind's beautiful 
voice rising above the voices of the other singers. After the bene- 
diction, the Royal bride and groom were received by the Queen at the 



VICTORIA. 79 

grand entrance to Windsor Castle. At four in the afternoon the 
Prince and Princess set out for Osborne amid the cheers of loyal 
crowds who lined the way to the station. 

In 1864 the Queen for the first time reappeared in public, the occa- 
sion being a flower show at the Horticultural Garden, Kensington. 
This, however, was but an isolated occurrence, for after the death of 
the Prince Consort, the Queen virtually abdicated her public position 
as English sovereign. 

Very early in the year a son was born to the Prince and Princess of 
Wales. This was Albert Victor. Her Majesty was very happy, and 
considerable festivities were given on the occasion of the baptism. 

But the Queen's correspondence at this time is again overcast by 
gloom. She had gone to Balmoral and in the silence of the mountain 
home she felt more acutely the loss of her husband than when she had 
been busy at Windsor where politics claimed much of her attention. 

In 1865 occurred the assassination of Lincoln. The Queen had 
always admired the President's character and she wrote to Mrs. 
Lincoln expressing with simple and womanly tenderness her sympathy. 
This year Gladstone became leader of the House of Commons. His 
financial genius and commanding intellect and oratorical powers had 
long marked him out for leadership. The Queen, always an admirer of 
" the grand old man " was pleased at his elevation. 

The Queen this year went to Germany for a short tour, and unveiled 
the statue that had been set up to the memory of the Prince Consort 
in the quaint market -place at Coburg. The Queen then proceeded to 
Ostend, and paid a brief visit to King Leopold. 

Later, it was announced that the Princess Helena was to be married 
to Prince Christian of Sleswig-Holstein, second son of the Duke of 
Augustenberg. > 

" Many thanks," writes the Princess Louis to the Queen on the 8th 
of December, " for your letter received yesterday with the account of 
Lenchen's betrothal. I am so glad she is happy, and I hope that 
every blessing will rest on them both, that one can possibly desire." 

It was arranged that the Queen should lend Frogmore to her 
daughter, so that she and her husband might be able to live in 
England. 

But the shadow of death was again to darken the Royal household. 
In the same letter in which the Princess Louis refers to her sister's be- 
trothal she says, " I had a letter from Mary Brabant two days ago, 
where she says that dear Uncle's (King Leopold) case is hopeless." 

On the 11th of December King Leopold died. 



80 VICTORIA. 

"Alas! alas! beloved Uncle Leopold is no more," wrote Princess 
Louis. " How much for you, for us, for all, goes with him to the 
grave. I do feel for you so much, for dear uncle was indeed a father 
to you. Now you are head of all the family — it seems incredible, and 
that dear papa should not be by your side. The regret for dear uncle 
is universal — lie stood so high in the eyes of all parties ; his life was a 
history in itself." 

Leopold's life was indeed " a history in itself." He was almost os- 
tentatiously indifferent to his position, ever impressing upon his sub- 
jects, that he reigned in their interests, not his own. Though he be- 
gan life one of the pettiest Princes of Germany, he had married in 
succession the heiress of England and the daughter of the King of the 
French. By a double marriage his children were allied to the Im- 
perial house of Hapsburg. He was the uncle and mentor of the Queen 
and the Prince Consort and with Baron Stockmar had brought about 
their marriage. His position was supposed to be unassailable from 
the day when, threatened by a revolution he calmly packed a carpet 
bag in the presence of the popular leaders, who thereupon in a parox- 
ism of fear as to consequences implored him not to leave the country. 
And yet according to Lord Malmesbury, " the last years of his life 
were spent in perpetual terrors of Louis Napoleon, and he was con- 
stantly alarming our ministers and everybody on the subject." 

Parliament met on the 1st of February, 1866, and the Queen 
opened it. But she did not wear her robes, which were placed on the 
throne, and her speech was read by the Lord Chancellor. It was the 
first State ceremony at which Her Majesty had assisted since the death 
of her husband. 

The approaching marriage of the Princess Helena with Prince 
Christian was announced in this Parliament. In the spring the Queen 
for the first time in five years reviewed the troops at Aldershot. 

On the 17th of June the Queen attended the marriage of the 
Princess Mary of Cambridge to the Duke of Teck. 

On the 27th of June, Her Majesty sent the first message over the ca- 
ble that had been laid between Ireland and the United States. 

" From the Queen, Osborne, to the President of the United States, 
Washington. — The Queen congratulates the President on the success- 
ful completion of an undertaking which she hopes may serve as an ad- 
ditional bond between the United States and England." 

Early in the next year the Queen received word of the successful 
military examination of Prince Arthur. " I think," writes the Princess 
Louis in answer to one of the Queen's letters on the subject, " I can 




MARRIAGE OF THS PRINCE OF WALES, 



n 



VICTORIA. 



understand what you must feel. I know well what those first three 
years were, what fearful sufferings, tearing and uprooting those feel- 
ings which had been centred on papa's existence. It is indeed as you 
say, ' a mercy ' that after the long storm a lull and calm ensues, though 
the violent pain which is but the reverse of the violent love seems only 




MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS HELENA. 



to die out with it, and that is likewise better yet, beloved mamma, 
could it be otherwise? There would be no justice or mercy were the 
first stage of sorrow to be the perpetual one." 

A Princess was born to the Prince and Princess of Wales on the 
20th of February, and on the 14th of April the Princess Christian gave 
birth to a son, the Queen being in close attendance on her daughter. 

On the 20th of May the Queen laid the first stone of the Hall of 
Arts and Sciences, at Kensington, now known as the Royal Albert 
Hall. " I thank you for your affectionate and dutiful address," the 



VICTORIA. 83 

Queen said in reply to the address delivered to her, at the time. "It 
has been with a struggle that I have nerved myself to a compliance with 
the wish that I should take part in this day's ceremonies; but I have 
been sustained by the thought that I should assist by my presence in 
promoting the accomplishment of his (the Prince Consort's) great de- 




THE QUEEN LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE OP THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL. 

signs, to whose memory the gratitude and affection of the country are 
now rearing a noble monument which I trust may yet look down on 
such a centre of institutions for the promotion of art and science as 
it was his fond hope to establish here. It is my wish that this hall 
should bear his name, to whom it will have owed its existence, and be 
called 'The Royal Albert Hall of Art and Sciences.' ' 

On the 13th of July the Sultan Abdul Aziz arrived in London. The 
following day he visited the Queen at Windsor, 



84 VICTORIA. 

Also in July the Emperor and Empress of the French spent a few 
days quietly at Osborne with the Queen. 

In August Her Majesty paid a visit to the Scotch border and was 
considerably brightened in spirits. The Queen always loved every- 
thing Scotch. 

Dr. Macleod, the Queen's favorite pastor in Scotland, writes of a 
visit to Balmoral : 

"After dinner the Queen invited me to her room where I found the 
Princess Helena and Marchioness of Ely. The Queen sat down to spin 
at a wee Scotch wheel, while I read Robert Burns to her — i Tarn O' 
Shanter' and 'a Man's a Man for a' That, ' her favorite." 

The following year (Disraeli Prime Minister) there was carried a 
bill in which the Queen was greatly interested — the bill for abolishing 
the demoralizing spectacle of public executions. 

The popularity of the Queen's book, " Leaves from the Journal of 
our Life in the Highlands," greatly pleased Her Majesty. The little 
book shows the homely, matronly, sensible business-like qualities of 
the English sovereign. It reproduces the wife and the house mother 
rather than the monarch, and it is written with tenderness of feeling 
and artless simplicity of expression. The little work has no public im- 
portance, except that it served to establish between the Queen and 
her people relations that were almost confidential. On the 5th of Dec- 
ember, the Queen was informed that George Peabody, the American, 
had presented £100,000 to the poor of London. This was his second 
gift, the whole donation amounting to £350,000. It was another 
friendly bond between England and America. 

Rumors of war were disturbing in 1869, the Fenian question as well, 
but in 1870 came a crisis. It was the fall of the French Empire. 
The Second Empire was consumed in a ring of fire at Sedan, and on 
the 4th of September, the Imperial dynasty was deposed and a Re- 
public proclaimed. The beautiful Empress fled for her life, being 
helped away by Dr. Evans, the American dentist, all her ambition 
ruined, and only England offering her a home. The Queen of Eng- 
land's tact at this time must not go unmentioned. She had family in- 
terests at stake in Germany, and she was, and still is, on friendly terms 
with the unfortunate Eugenie di Montijo. Efforts to embroil Great 
Britain in the war were ineffectual, but the stoutest diplomacy was at 
times called into play, to stop gaps in diplomatic relations which might 
lead to the direst results. 

Victorious and conquering, a Bismarck at their head, the Germans 
kept strengthening their hold on France till it became clear that Ger- 



VICTORIA. 85 

man unity under Prussian leadership was an accomplished fact. Nego- 
tiations for the South German States in the North German Confedera- 
tion promised well, the King of Bavaria, the Grand Duke of Baden 
and the other Sovereign Princes invited King William of Prussia to 
assume the Imperial Crown, and on the 18th of January, 1871, he was 
proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Kings at Versailles, and 
the Princess Royal of England, first born of the Queen, was now in the 
immediate succession to the title of Empress. During 1870 the Queen 
emerged from her seclusion to open, on 11th of May, the hall and 
offices of the University of London, in Burlington Gardens. Much 
was made of the ceremony and Her Majesty was accompanied by the 
Prince and Princess of Wales and a brilliant train of distinguished 
persons. When the Queen retired. Lord Granville in distributing the 
prizes referred to Queen Elizabeth's visits to Oxford and Cambridge — 
those visits during which martial Bess is described as " questioning 
and answering and scolding," and may be swearing a little, as Her 
Majesty was not above a good round oath. 

In the autumn of this year the Queen gave her consent to the mar- 
riage of the Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lome, the eldest son 
of the Duke of Argyll. When it was known that the Queen had 
violated the traditions of the House of Brunswick and reverted to old 
precedents set by the Plantagenets, the Tudors and the Stuarts, who 
all contracted marriages with subjects, society was greatly excited. 
But the marriage was regarded as only another evidence of the triumph 
of democratic ideas over monarchical principle. The Queen with tact 
had consciously or unconsciously responded to modern feeling. The 
people had always disliked, though they had never dared to repeal, the 
Royal Marriage Act. The Act was a sacrifice to expediency, it was 
passed mainly because Englishmen did not wish to see Mrs. Fitzherbert 
crowned Queen of England. The Act bound all the descendants of 
George III. who wished to marry to obtain the written consent of the 
Sovereign. (But it was so clumsily worded that it did not bind the 
Sovereign, which fact explains Lord Melbourne's anxiety to see the 
young Queen Victoria well married.) But when the royal family 
had so increased that the Princess Louise stood only twentieth in the 
line of succession, it was reasonable time for the act of expediency to 
be declared inoperative. 

The death of Charles Dickens on the 9th of June robbed the world 
of a great novelist who had done most signal service to humanity 
in bringing to light and condemning enormities injuring the poor and 
friendless. It was the mission of Dickens to rouse the consciences 



86 VICTORIA. 

and touch the sympathies of the governing classes whose apathy or ig- 
norance of the life lived by the lower orders of society, needed the quick- 
ening touch of just such a man, a man whose heart beat in unison 
with a common brotherhood, and who took the oppressed and by his 
genius helped them incalculably. His quality as a humorist alone, 
would give him a unique position among men of letters in the Victorian 
period. His faculty of observation has rarely been exceeded. There 
was no limit to his production of fresh illustrations of the character- 
izations which were his forte — idiosyncratic, bizarre, he invested an en- 
tire personality with a single phase and made it a corporeal reality. 
His passion for melodramatic effect made some of his work unreal, 
but the vogue he enjoyed has never been equalled by any other Writer. 

The Queen was a devoted admirer of the novelist's genius. Next to 
Scott and George Eliot, Dickens was her favorite. It had been her 
desire in the early part of her married life to make his acquaintance 
personally, but there was a touch of false pride in Dickens which made 
him morbidly sensitive on the subject of "patronage," and this pre- 
vented a meeting being brought about. In 1858 the Queen made a 
second attempt to bring the great novelist to Court. "I was put into 
a state of much perplexity," wrote Dickens. " I don't know who had 
spoken to my informant, but it seems that the Queen is bent on hearing 
the 'Carol' read, and has expressed her desire to bring it about with- 
out offence, and hesitating about the manner of it, in consequence of 
my having begged to be excused from going to her when she sent for 
me after the Frozen Deep " — the other time when the Queen had 
hoped to meet him. " I parried the thing as well as I could, but being 
asked to be prepared with a considerate and obliging answer, as it was 
known the request would be preferred, I said, ' Well, I supposed 
Colonel Phipps would speak to me about it, and if it were he who did 
so, I would assure him of my desire to meet any wish of Her Majesty, 
and should express my hope that she would indulge me by making one 
of some audience or other, but I thought an audience necessary to the 
effect.' Thus it stands, but it bothers me." 

This difficulty could not be overcome, though the Queen by buying 
a copy of the " Carol " signed with the author's autograph at the sale 
of Thackeraj-'s library, testified to her interest in the two great humor- 
ists of her age, although Thackeray by his attacks on her family might 
have been thought scarcehv one to enjoy his Sovereign's favor. It was 
not till 1870, short! j r before his death, that Dickens met the Queen. 
He had brought from his American tour many photographs of the 
battlefields of the civil war. Having taken a great interest in that 



VICTORIA. 87 

struggle, and followed its details closely, Her Majesty who had heard 
of the photographs, expressed a wish to see them. Dickens at once 
sent the pictures to Buckingham Palace. He then received a message 
from the Queen inviting him to see her that she might thank him in 
person. Dickens of course went, for though he had refused a baronetcy 
which the Queen would gladly have conferred on him, he was per- 
suaded to go to court. 

The closing weeks of 1870 and the early days of 1871 were full of 
anxiety to the Queen. The Franco-Prussian war had brought about a 
great change in the minds of the people as to the sort of work the 
Government should do, and the Government did not respond quickly 
to the new impulse which the fall of Imperialism in France and the 
rise of the new German Empire had given to public opinion in 
England. 

But the most extraordinary change in general sentiment in 1871 was 
that which marked public opinion in regard to the marriage of the 
Princess Louise. When it was announced, popular opinion was clearly 
in favor of the alliance, but toward the end of January, 1871, there was 
hardly a member of any borough who was not asked menacingly if he 
meant to vote for a national dowry for the Princess. The Queen was 
annoyed at having her daughter's name rudely handled at mass meet- 
ings. The unexpected change in public sentiment was due to the be- 
lief that when Royalty formed alliances outside of Royalty, it ought to 
accept the rule prevailing in private stations of life, that it is the duty 
of the husband to provide for the wife. 

But common sense soon prevailed, it was admitted that the country 
lowered its dignity when it refused the royal family it upheld, allow- 
ances that were necessary to make a becoming state. 

The Princess was married on the 21st of March. The town of 
Windsor was en fete. The Queen gave away the Princess. After the 
ceremony the Queen took her daughter in her arms and kissed her 
heartily, the Marquis of Lome kneeling and kissing Her Majesty's 
hand. On the 29th of March, in the presence of a brilliant crowd, the 
Queen opened the Royal Albert Hall at Kensington. On the 21st of 
June, Her Majesty appeared again in London to open the new build- 
ings of St. Thomas's Hospital, on the Albert Embankment. 

Nothing could exceed the alarm of the country when it was learned 
in November that the Prince of Wales was ill at Sandringham, of 
typhoid fever, the malady which had cut off his father in his prime. 
The Queen took her place at the sufferer's bedside. After becoming 
apparently better the Prince had a relapse and the worst was feared. 
6 



88 



VICTORIA. 



Twice the physicians warned the Queen that the end was at hand, but 
at last, on the 14th of December, the tenth anniversary of his 
father's death, the Prince rallied and there was hope for the Heir to 
the Throne. 




THE PRINCESS LOUISE. 



During the first weeks of 1872 the convalescence of the Heir appar- 
ent seemed to obscure other topics of political interest. Faction was 
silenced, and sympathy held out its ample hand to the Sovereign and 
her child, and great was the rejoicing when it was announced in the 
middle of January that the Queen would proceed in State to St. Paul's 



90 VICTORIA. 

Cathedral to return thanks for the recovery of her son. Tuesday, the 
27th of February, was fixed for the ceremony. 

The day was clear and bright. Her Majesty seemed to be in good 
health. The Prince was pale, but bright and happy looking. There 
was a magnificent demonstration of national loyalty, an outburst of 
wonderful enthusiasm, proving that the Queen had forfeited none of the 
love of her subjects although her long seclusionin widowhood may have 
produced a sentiment of latent indifference to the institution of 
royalty. 

On the day, February 29th, when the Queen had written a letter 
thanking her subjects for their recent demonstration, a lad rushed to 
the carriage in which she had driven out and presented a pistol, while 
he flourished a petition in the other hand. The Queen remained un- 
moved. John Brown, the Prince Consort's favorite Highland gillie, 
was more prominent than the other attendants in preserving the Queen 
from the attack, and the pistol was afterward found to be unloaded. 

This gillie, John Brown, though rude of manner had stolid fidelity, 
shrewd judgment, and blunt honesty of speech, and was a great favorite 
in the Queen's family. 

The Alabama claims were brought forward in this year, and the 
Queen studied the matter with much interest. 

In May, the Queen was gratified in hearing of the discovery of Liv- 
ingstone, the African explorer about whose safety much anxiety had 
been felt. She was loud in her praises of Stanley who had made the 
discover}^. The Queen was much interested in the African explora- 
tions as to the source of the Nile, and had held several conversations 
with Livingstone while he was in England. 

Apart from the political strife and the ministerial embarrassments 
which severely taxed the nerves of the Queen, life at the court was 
not now very eventful. Interest centred chiefly round the Prince and 
Princess of Wales who were discharging most of the social duties of 
the Crown. 

On the 4th of January, 1S73, the Queen was grieved to hear of the 
death of the ex-Emperor of the French, at Chiselhurst. Her sympathy 
was freely bestowed on the ex-Empress who was prostrated by her mis- 
fortunes. 

Five years before, the death of this man whose imperial life seemed 
always shadowed by the crime of the coup d'ttat, would have convulsed 
Europe. Now the world was indifferent to it. People spoke of his 
character as a moral paradox, and of his career as a political crime, but 
without prejudice or feeling. 



VICTORIA. 91 

A foreign curiosity of the London season of this year was the Shah 
of Persia. He had brought only a half million sterling as pocket 
money "because there had just been a famine in Persia." He dripped 
with diamonds. His manners were scarcely up to the demands of 
English Court life, and he appeared terribly bored. The Queen held a 
reception in his honor, and while he was on British soil he was enter- 
tained more than his heart could have wished. 

It was announced in July that the Duke of Edinburgh had been be- 
trothed to the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, the only daughter 
of the Czar of Russia. This alliance was unusually interesting, for the 
Duke of Edinburgh was practically within the Royal succession, as, if 
the Prince of Wales and his children died the Duke would come to the 
throne. Apart from her great wealth the daughter of the ruler of All 
the Russias was a fine fitting mate for a prince who was near the throne 
of his own country. 

The marriage was solemnized on the 23d of January, 1874, at the 
Czar's winter palace in St. Petersburg in accordance with the Greek 
and the Anglican rites. All that wealth and absolute power could do 
to invest the ceremony with magnificence was done. The Queen was 
represented by Viscount Sydney and Lady Augusta Stanley. 

The Grand Duchess when she came to her new home brought her 
own weather with her — a bleak and blinding snowstorm characterized 
the day (12th of March) when she was introduced by the Queen to 
London. The Queen rode with her through the streets, cheered as 
much as was the bride, but still in half-mourning for the Prince Con- 
sort, a style of dress she has never abandoned. 

During the year the Queen seldom appeared in public, and a curious 
languor crept over the upper classes. They craved amusement, and 
when the Prince of Wales gave a fancy ball in July, society was wild 
with excitement. Sport became a serious business with every one, 
fashionable life became so costly that rents had to be exacted with un- 
usual rigor, and strikes among the agricultural population were the 
order of the day. 

The Czar of Russia visited England in May, and festivities in his 
honor made trade more active. 

The controversy then raging over vivisection interested Her Majesty 
greatly, and she did what she could to support a law suppressing the 
cutting of live animals in the interests of surgery. 

The Royal Titles bill was introduced on the 7th of February, 1876. 
It was said that the Queen, ever since the Duchess of Edinburgh 
claimed precedence over her sisters-in-law after her marriage, on the 



92 VICTORIA. 

ground that hers was an Imperial while theirs was a Royal title, desired 
to be stjded Empress of India. The Peers were as reluctant as the 
Commons to sanction the adoption of exotic titles, and the Crown did 
not scruple to bring personal pressure to bear on them for the purpose 
of overcoming their threatened opposition. This brought on a great 
controversy in the cabinet. 

In the midst of it the Queen visited Whitechapel on the 6th of March 
to open a new wing of the London hospital. Her Majesty was enthu- 
siastically received all through London. The visit was taken to be an 
intimation that the Crown was not a mere toy of the aristocracy, and 
that when the Queen came out of her seclusion it was not solely for the 
benefit of the West End shopkeepers. 

" The bees welcome their queen/' was one of the mottoes displayed 
on the route. "I was sick, and ye visited me," was another. 

In the hospital, a little girl invalid was heard to say that she knew 
if she could see the Queen she should get better. Her Majesty went 
at once to the cot of the child and kissed her and soothed her with 
many kind words. 

On the 17th of August the Queen unveiled the Scotch National Me- 
morial to Prince Albert, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh. 

The daily papers were filled with glowing accounts of the proclama- 
tion of the Queen as Empress of India at Delhi, on the 1st of January, 
1877. 

The "green Yule" which bodes ill-luck ushered in the year 1877. 
The attitude of the ministry on the Eastern question was still one of 
indecision, but on January 11th it was announced that the British fleet 
had been recalled from Besika Bay. This was a warning that England 
had little sympatlr^ with the stubbornness of the Porte which still 
refused to concede the guarantees for reform in its European provinces 
that the conference insisted on. 

February 8th, the Queen opened Parliament in person and was well 
received in the crowded streets. The scene in the House of Lords was 
one of exceptional brilliancy. After the speech was read by Lord 
Cairns, the Queen descending the steps of the Throne, left the chamber, 
the ceremony so far as Her Majesty was concerned not occupying more 
than a quarter of an hour. 

Eveiy thing centred in the Eastern question. England might go to 
war to prevent " Bulgaria from falling into the hands of Russia, but 
not for the mere maintenance of the integrity and independence of 
Turkey," had said the Prince Consort in 1853. The Prince consid- 
ered that such a war ought not to lead " to the obtaining of arrange- 



VICTORIA. 



93 



ments mor6 consonant with the well understood interests of Europe, 
of Christianity, liberty and civilization, than the re-imposition of the 
ignorant barbarian and despotic yoke of the Musselman over the most 
fertile and favored portion of Europe." 




THE QUEEN VISITING THE LONDON HOSPITAL. 



Mr. Gladstone accepted this view of English policy. Lord Palmers- 
ton repudiated it, and contended that it was the duty of England to 
maintain the integrity of Turkey at all hazards ; that the Prince Con* 
sort's policy pointed to the ultimate expulsion of the Ottomans from 



94 VICTORIA. 

Europe ; and that any reconstruction of Turkey such as that the 
Prince foreshadowed simply meant " its subjection to Russia, direct or 
indirect, immediate or for a time delayed." 

In 1877 it was not yet decided which of these views was correct. 

It is not necessary to describe the steps which led to the outbreak of 
the war between Russia and Turkey, this short history being of the 
Queen of England as a person. Though it may be said in passing that 
Her Majesty was greatly disturbed, nor is there need to narrate the 
events of the war — how Osnian Pasha from behind his earthworks at 
Plevna blocked the Russian advance, and Mukhtar held the Russians 
at bay in Asia Minor. The Tories were clamoring for England to 
interfere on behalf of Turkey, some of them seeming to hold out that it 
was almost a duty for the country to head a new crusade on behalf of 
Islam against Christianity, so feverish and extravagant was their parti- 
sanship. But the public utterance of the Ministers indicated their 
determination to remain neutral, and Lord Derby did his best to con- 
vince Musurus Pasha that Turkey was abandoned to her fate. Though 
the fact was not known at the time, a perfectly frank and friendly 
understanding existed between Russia and England all the time. But 
the money market was affected, and securities fell with amazing rapid- 
ity. Throughout England, meetings were held by business people, 
protesting against any divergence from the policy of neutrality. At 
night, bands of young men representing the war party marched about 
London singing, 

11 We don't want to fight, 
But by Jingo if we do 
We've got the ships, we've got the men, 
And we've got the money, too." 

Thus originated the terms " Jingo'' and "Jingoism," so much made 
use of in English politics down to the present time. 

The third volume of the " Life of the Prince Consort," was pub- 
lished about this time, and it was assumed by the partisans of both sides 
that its author, Theodore Martin, had issued it by the Queen's order as 
a powerful pamphlet against Russia. 

But another circumstance gave color to the floating gossip as to the 
Queen's anti-Turkish sympathies. She resolved to bestow on Disraeli, 
now Lord Beaconsfield, a distinction she had bestowed on only three of 
her Premiers — Melbourne, Peel and Aberdeen — that of paying him a 
visit at his country seat — Beaconsfield who held to the views of the 
Prince Consort undeviatingly in this matter. 

On the 15th of December the Queen arrived at High Wycombe and 



VICTORIA. 95 

was received by her host, and amid the cheers of the people there 
assembled, drove to the Premier's seat, Hughenden Manor. Her Maj, 
esty had luncheon there, and she and the Princess Beatrice planted 
trees on the grounds in memory of the visit. 

The war was of short duration, and the Treaty of Peace was signed 
at San Stefano March 3d, 1878. Nineteen days later, the text of this 
Treaty, by which, as Prince Bismarck told General Grant, " IgnatiefT 
had swallowed more than Russia could digest," was printed in the English 
newspapers. The war party collapsed, it was clear that the Russians 
had not touched British interests, and that to offer to fight on behalf 
of Turkey when she no longer existed as a fighting Power and had 
signed a treaty of Peace, was rather odd. 

In 1878 came the third Afghan trouble. War was declared, and Par- 
liament was summoned on the 5th of December to hear the news. It 
need scarcely be touched on in this connection, save to remark that the 
Queen had much to do and think of rather than to make herself a vol- 
untary worshipper of sorrow for her husband, as many have thought 
was the case. The Queen always had to do with public affairs. 

Says Smalley, "A notion prevails that, while the Queen is admirable 
in all the relations of private life, she has had no great influence on 
the course of public affairs. It is a mistaken notion, and it rests on a 
mistaken conception of the sovereign's relation to the state. The days 
when a King or Queen of England ruled as well as reigned are, of 
course, long since past. England has been governed successively by 
the Crown, by her aristocracy, by her middle class, and now by her de- 
mocracy. The transfer of power to the middle class was effected just 
before the Queen came to the throne. Its transfer to the working 
classes was effected late in her reign, partly in 1868, finally in 1874, 
by the passage of the County Franchise bill. 

" But from the beginning of the Victorian era in 1837 down to the 
present day the Queen has had a constant and often a considerable 
share in the government. It has been, moreover, an increasing share, 
and, though it may seem a paradox, it is perfectly true that under the 
present democratic constitution of the government her share of power 
has been larger than while the middle classes governed and the suffrage 
was restricted. The reason is not political mainly, but personal. It is 
the personal character and capacity of the Queen which have asserted 
themselves. She began to learn her trade as soon as she be- 
came Queen. Under the tutelage of Lord Melbourne she applied her- 
self to the business of the state. She maintained with successive 
Prime Ministers — with Peel, with Palmerston, with Disraeli, with Mr. 



96 VICTORIA. 

Gladstone, with Lord Salisbury, and with the lesser men who at various 
periods held the Premiership, a close and continuing relation. They 
were Prime Ministers from time to time. She was Queen all the time. 
She knew everything. All the springs of foreign and domestic policy 
were laid bare to her. 

" If there ever was a period during which her ascendancy seemed 
likely to be shaken it was while Prince Albert was Consort. She came 
much under his sway, and, accomplished as he was, able in some ways 
as he proved himself, he was not a good adviser. He was a foreigner, 
and he had the foreigner's point of view. So had Stockmar. The 
Queen, nevertheless, though leaning too much on Prince Albert, applied 
herself as assiduously as ever to business. Then and ever she read all 
the important despatches. No matter of moment in foreign policy was 
ever settled without her knowledge, seldom without her concurrence. 
In domestic affairs she had less authority. She might influence, and 
did influence Ministers, but she could only influence the House of 
Commons at second hand, and she had to submit, of course, to many a 
change — sometimes a change that to her seemed revolutionary, and was 
at any rate fundamental — which she had vainly opposed." 

During the session of 1878 only one matter personally affecting the 
interests of the Queen came up. She sent to both Houses the an- 
nouncement of the approaching marriage of the Duke of Connaught 
with the Princess Louise, third daughter of Prince Frederick Charles 
of Prussia, popularly known as the " Red Prince." The Princess was 
described by Lord Beaconsfield as " distinguished for her intelligence 
and accomplishments, and her winning simplicit}^ of thought and 
manner." 

The only great public function of the year in which the Queen took 
part was the review of the fleet at Spithead. It represented a naval 
force which, except for its ordnance, was equal in strength to the navy 
of any of the Continental Powers. 

At Paris, June 12th, there died George V., ex-King of Hanover, 
Duke of Cumberland, grandson of George III., of England, and first 
cousin of the Queen. The old jealousy with which the people regarded 
English princes who had interests apart from those of England, must 
account for the general indifference as to his decease. 

The end of the year brought a greater sorrow to the Queen than the 
death of her cousin. The Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, 
died under extremely pathetic circumstances. The 8th of November, 
her daughter, the Princess Victoria, was attacked by diphtheria. The 
Grand Duchess attended the child, and the whole family, though 



VICTORIA. 37 

isolated, contracted the disease, the Grand Duke included, the Princess 
Elizabeth alone being exempt. As might be expected, the strength of 
the Grand Duchess gave way under the mental strain and bodily fatigue. 
The Princess May died, but the Grand Duke recovered. On the 7th 
of December the Grand Duchess went to the railway station to see 
the Duchess of Edinburgh and the next day she too was stricken. On 
the 13th of December it was seen that she must die. In the afternoon 
she welcomed her husband with great joy and read a letter from her 
mother, the Queen. She then fell asleep and never woke again. 

The grief of the Queen was equalled by that of the Prince of Wales 
who seems to have regarded the Grand Duchess as his favorite sister. 

The character of the Princess Alice was peculiarly attractive. Her 
devotion to her mother in the first hours of her widowhood, and to the 
Heir Apparent, when in 1871 his life hung in the balance, is well known. 
That her life was clouded with sordid cares due to straitened means 
was not known to her countrymen till after her death, and the Queen 
had privately helped her more than once. Her efforts to elevate the 
condition of her sex in Germany raised up enemies round her in a 
country where the house mother has always been regarded as the best 
type of womanhood. She loved learning and delighted in the society 
of men of letters and artists, and at one time she cultivated such close 
relations with Friederich Strauss, while studying Voltaire, that she 
was called an infidel. Her musings on the mystery of life, the prob- 
lem of duty, the conflict between will and law show a profound but 
equally reverent spirit. Sometime after her philosophic conclusions had 
crumbled away it is written that the .old simple faith returned without 
the peradventure of a doubt. 

The Zulu war with Cetewayo claimed the attention in 1879. Eng- 
land had annexed the Transvaal and she took with it the quarrels of 
the Boers and the Zulus. Cetewayo wished back again the land that 
had been taken from him. The war party in Natal ridiculed the 
notion. The Boundary Commission had been in favor of the Zulus, 
but when their award was communicated to King Cetewayo there 
was tacked to it the demand that he should immediately disband his 
whole army. To destroy instead of using the Zulu power was to re- 
lieve the Boers from the pressure on their flank that alone hindered 
them from throwing off the British yoke. Again " some one had 
blundered." Cetewayo went into battle and inflicted on the British 
army a defeat so disgraceful that " the history of half a century has 
nothing to equal it." 

The Afghan war had been more skilfully managed. The British in- 



98 VICTORIA. 

vaders overcame all resistance, and when Parliament assembled General 
Stewart was in possession of Candahar, and Shere Ali had fled from 
Cabul. 

The severe winter of 1879 caused great suffering among the labor- 
ing poor in England and Ireland. 

Parnell now took a great interest in the discipline of the army, and 
the bettering of the condition of the private soldier. He persisted 
against every one in power, and in July, Lord Hartington proposed that 
corporal punishment should be abolished for all military offences. 

In South Africa affairs began to assume a more hopeful aspect toward 
the end of the year. The Zulu chiefs, oiie after another, submitted to 
the British Government. Cetewayo, who had been captured in August, 
was sent to Cape Town, and Sir Garnet Wolseley made peace with the 
Zulu chiefs and people. 

The Zulu war was marked by one incident which influenced the 
destiny of Europe. The young Prince Louis Napoleon, the " Prince 
Imperial," had resolved to serve with the British Army. His object 
was to acquire a military reputation that might be useful to him as a 
Pretender to the Throne of France. He held no commission, but was 
treated as a junior officer of the general staff. On the 1st of June the 
Prince was allowed to make a reconnaissance in order to choose the 
site for a camp. The Prince was in command of the party that set out. 
He led his little troop some distance and then stopped for rest in a 
deserted kraal surrounded by a field of corn. Here he waited an hour, 
and the Zulus surrounded him. When he gave his men the order to 
move, the savages sprang from their hiding places in the corn and began 
to fire. It was not until the troop had retreated some distance that it 
was discovered that the Prince was missing. It appeared that he had 
been unable to mount his horse, which was frightened and restive, and 
the Zulus rushed on him with their assegais, and the hope of his re- 
gilding the tarnished eagles of his House was at an end. 

The ex-Empress, who had encouraged her son to proceed to the seat 
of war, was prostrated. The Queen in great pity and sympathy did all 
she could to console her, but the hopes of Imperialism in France were 
now shattered, and the ambition of a deposed Empress was lost in the 
sorrow of a mother who was already a widow. 

The family life of the English Court in 1879 was brightened by a 
Royal wedding. The Duke of Connaught was married to the Princess 
Louise Marguerite, of Prussia, on the 13th of March, and the wedding 
was celebrated with some display. The ceremony took place in St. 
George's Chapel, Windsor. The Queen wore a complete court dress of 



VICTORIA. 99 

black satin with a white veil and a flashing coronet of diamonds. The 
Red Prince gave his daughter away, and at the close of the ceremony the 
Queen and Royal Family returned to the Palace amid a salute of guns. 

That same month the Queen and Princess Beatrice went to Italy. 
Here she learned of the death of her grandson, Prince Waldemar, of 
Prussia. During her stay in Italy Her Majesty assumed the title of 
the Countess of Balmoral. Garibaldi and the Pope vied with King 
Humbert in welcoming her. King Humbert and Queen Margherita 
left Rome for Monza, and met the train which brought the Queen from 
Baveno. The party then drove to the Royal Castle, said to be the 
most uncomfortable of Royal residences, and after lunching, the Queen 
returned to Baveno, which she left on the 23d of April, arriving in 
Paris the next day. On her arrival at Turin, she was met with the 
news of the death of the Duke of Roxburghe, the husband of one of her 
valued friends — the shadow of death seeming to keep close to her. 

She arrived at Windsor on the 27th, where the German Empress 
came to spend some days with her in May. During this visit both 
Royal ladies became great-grandmothers, the Queen's first great-grand- 
child being born on the 12th of May. This was the firstborn daughter 
of the Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen, the eldest daughter of the 
German Crown Prince and Princess. 

" If 1880 opened cheerfully, it was solely because men felt a sense of 
relief at getting rid of what they called 'the bad old year.' " 

Parliament was opened on the 5th of February. 

The Ameer had abdicated and the army could not be called home, 
the distress in Ireland was great and had to be provided for in the 
Irish Relief bill. This was the year of the rout of the Tories and 
Beaconsfield. While the elections were taking place the Queen was 
abroad. Little dreaming that the verdict of the people would destroy 
Lord Beaconsfield's Ministry, she had arranged to visit Hesse-Darm- 
stadt to be present at the confirmation of the daughters of the late 
Princess Alice. 

Her Majesty returned to England on the 17th of April, and on the 
28th the Ministers resigned office. Gladstone became Prime Minister. 

The year was not an eventful one in the family life of the Court. 
Before Parliament was dissolved the Queen arranged to visit her rela- 
tives in Germany. The time had come when her granddaughters, the 
Princess Victoria and the Princess Elizabeth of Hesse were to be con- 
firmed, and Her Majesty desired to be present at the ceremony. She 
returned to England just as the electoral crisis was over, to find the 
Ministry she had thought so stable overthrown, and public opinion not 



100 VICTORIA. 

only clamoring for the dismissal of Beaconsfield from office, but for the 
return of Gladstone to power. 

On the 20th of May the Queen and the Princess Beatrice left 
Windsor for Balmoral, and the Prince and Princess of Wales dis- 
charged Her Majesty's social duties as they had already done so fre- 
quently, and have ever since. 

On her way to her Highland home, the Queen took part in a cere- 
mony of which she was the promoter. During a terrific storm in Feb- 
ruary, a Swedish ship had been thrown on the rocks of Peterhead. 
The coast guard succeeded in flinging a rocket over the wreck, but the 
crew apparently misunderstood the working of the apparatus. The 
vessel would have been lost but for the bravery of one of the coast 
guard. He leaped into water, and after a fierce conflict with the waves 
reached the ship, fixed the rocket appliance, saw the crew safely con- 
veyed ashore, and was himself the last to take his place in the cradle. 
The Queen presented him with the Albert medal in May, decorating 
him with her own hands. 

That year Lord Beaconsfield published his audacious political novel, 
" Endymion." The town was in raptures over the burlesque on society 
in it, and every character was said to be recognized as some one in 
social and political life. 

The } r ear closed with an event serious to the world of literature. 
This was the passing away of George Eliot who, at her death, was the 
foremost of living novelists, and "the Victorian period produced no 
genius that in culture, strength, tenderness, spiritual insight and 
humor could be compared with hers." The sombre fatalism of the 
Greek tragedians overshadows her " Mill on the Floss." The humor 
of Shakespeare ripples through the tap-room scenes in "Silas Marner." 
In " Romola" she might have defeated Scott in the "field of historical 
romance, except for the psychological analysis overweighing the book. 
In " Adam Bede,'' which has probably been more read than any other 
story on both sides of the Atlantic, she revealed all the grace, sweet- 
ness, delicacy of feeling, nobility of intellect and purity of heart that 
formed her sympathetic personality. 

Her novels had been a source of pure enjoyment to the Queen. 

The next year the government was confronted with difficulties. 
First there was the Irish question, the Coercion bill and the arrest of 
Mr. Davitt. It was a crisis in Ireland. The theory of the Irish Land 
bill was, that every farm is owned by two persons, the farmer who 
owns the improvements he has made on the soil, and by the landlord 
who owns everything else. 






VICTORIA. 



101 



The bill gave the tenant additional means of protecting his share of 
the land from being swallowed up by the landlord. 

It was not till the 29th of July, that Gladstone carried the third 
reading of the bill after a desperate struggle. 




MARLBOROUGH HOUSE. 



The Queen had always set her face against oppression, and she pitied 
the Irish. Indeed her leniency had, during certain periods, been con- 
demned ever since when early in her reign she was sent a warrant to 
sign for the execution of a deserter in whose case there were mitigating 
circumstances, and instead of signing for his being put out of life, she 
wrote across the paper " Pardoned," and handed it to the Duke of 
Wellington. 

The South African trouble was by no means settled, which was 
another trouble to the Government. Then early in the spring the 
shadow of mourning fell over the nation — Lord Beaconsfield died in 
April. 



102 VICTORIA. 

His life, to use a favorite phrase of his own, was " reall}- a romance,'" 
and his career a long and brilliant one. His strength lay in his free- 
dom from prejudices in the knowledge he had of the foibles of the 
lower classes whom he enfranchised, and in his intellectual detachment 
from English insularity. As a writer he was sparkling, and his invec- 
tive and wit made an era in political life. 

It was with the deepest pain that the conn try heard, on the 14th of 
March, of the assassination of the Czar of Russia. The Queen had not 
been on the friendliest terms with him, but she was greatly shocked, 
and she did all she could to console the Duchess of Edinburgh who 
was prostrated by her father's death. Both Houses addressed messages 
of condolence to Her Majesty and the Duchess. 

It was recognized that Alexander II. would live in history as one of 
the most humane of sovereigns. His emancipation of the serfs had 
converted them into peasant proprietors, and his devotion to the high- 
est interests of Russia knew no limits. 

The murder of the rulers of countries was now alarming, and when 
the Queen left Windsor for Osborne that } T ear, the public was some- 
what alarmed, and for the first time in her career precautions were taken 
to' protect her life. 

The Queen returned to Windsor in June, where she was visited by 
the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany, and there was a review of 
fifty thousand troops in Windsor Park. 

This same year, in July, the Queen lost a good friend in Dean Stan- 
ley. His death was also felt by the church very deeply, for his influ- 
ence was at once conciliatory and tolerant. His relations with the 
Royal family were close and intimate, and as the husband of Lady 
Augusta Stanley, who had also died, his career had been watched by 
the Queen with great interest and sympathy. 

On the 19th of September, the Queen received the melancholy news 
of the death of President Garfield, who had lingered since the 2d of 
July when he had been shot down by Guiteau. The Queen sent a 
touching letter to Mrs. Garfield, and ordered the Court to go into 
mourning as if Mr. Garfield had been of the Royal caste. 

The Queen on the opening of Parliament in February next, an- 
nounced the approaching marriage of the Duke of Albany. 

Soon after came the shock of horror occasioned by the Phoenix Park 
murders, and the Irish Party were sincere in regretting these murders. 

The Egyptian question in this season was very acute. On the 11th 
of June there was a riot in Alexandria, the British Consul was injured 
and many French and English subjects were slain. The Queen this 



VICTORIA. 103 

year ordered a monument to the memory of Lord Beaconsfield, which 
was erected in Hughenden church were he was buried beside his wife, 
as was his wish, rather than in Westminster Abbey, as was the desire of 
the people. 

" Kings love him that speaketh right," was the motto engraved on 
the monument. The year was also marked by an attempt to assassinate 
the Queen. On the 2d of March, Her Majesty was driving from Wind- 
sor Station to the Castle when a man shot at her carriage. A by- 
stander struck down his arm. The would-be assassin's excuse was that 
he was starving and wished to draw attention to his case. 

Another outrage on the Queen has to be set down in 1882. 
A young man threatened to murder Her Majesty. He sent a 
letter purporting to come from a priest and fifty of his parishioners 
who had been evicted by their landlords, warning the Queen of her 
peril and saying if paid a certain sum, each of these men would 
emigrate. This man, named Young, was sentenced to ten years' penal 
servitude. The marriage of the Duke of Albany and the Princess 
Helene of Waldeck-Pyrmont was solemnized on the 27th of April. 
Her Majesty as usual was robed as a widow, but wore the famous Koh- 
i-noor on her bosom. The bridegroom was supported by the Prince of 
Wales. After the ceremony Her Majesty affectionately embraced the 
happy couple. 

Unusual interest was taken in this wedding partly on account of the 
splendor of the ceremony, and because the Duke had won a bride ad- 
mirably suited to his refined and studious life. As he seemed destined 
to form a link between the court and culture, so it was hoped the 
Duchess might become the head of a growing school who were to show 
the world that the lives of women of rank were not necessarily to be 
absorbed by frivolity and mere philanthropy. On the 19th of April 
the death of Darwin robbed the world of a singularly original scientific 
investigator, though it would seem that the Queen had little sympathy 
with the great author of the " Origin of the Species." 

The death of Garibaldi and Gambetta this same year, profoundly 
moved the English people, little in touch as they had been with the 
nobility of both men. The strange case of Lady Florence Dixie who 
alleged that a murderous attack had been made on her in the shrub- 
bery of her house at Windsor, by two men disguised as women, lost 
the Queen a valued friend. As her ladyship had been writing a good 
deal on the Irish question, and the town was in a panic over the dyna- 
mite war, it was feared that this attack had been planned by one of 
the secret societies. The story alarmed the Queen showing her as it 
7 



104 VICTORIA. 

did that there was peril almost at the doors of Windsor Castle, and 
Her Majesty's personal attendant, John Brown, was despatched to ex- 
amine the ground where the reported outrage was said to have occurred. 
He caught a chill in doing so and died in March. 

Brown, about whom so much has been written and told, began life 
as gillie to the Prince Consort. For nineteen years he was the per- 
sonal attendant of the Queen, and no servant was ever more com- 
pletely trusted by a royal master or mistress. The Queen's expressions 
of sorrow over Brown's grave gave expression to a sentiment of mel- 
ancholy which was a natural outcome of her life of " lonely splendor." 

The gifted pen of a powerful novelist had thrown light on the East 
End of London. Mr. Besant preached what wealth owes to poverty, 
and wealth attended. Hands swift to do good were stretched forth 
from the West End to the East End, and a movement destined to real- 
ize some of the ideals of the clever author of "All Sorts and Condi- 
tions of Men " was started, and was to be perfected in the Peoples' 
Palace in the Jubilee year over which all phases of society were now 
talking. The pace of three London seasons had been rapid and the 
fashionable world had exhausted its resources of amusement, so the 
Jubilee Year, 1887, was a new theme. The West End began to visit 
the worst parts of the city, and " slumming " was the vogue, as it was 
known how much the Queen favored Besant's plan of bettering the 
condition of the socially ostracised and Lord Salisbury's essay on the 
Housing of the Poor. It was no unusual thing for ladies and gentle- 
men to leave a ball and go to the haunts of misery and crime, and if 
idle curiosity took many, the lesson learned was not- thrown awa} r . 
The Queen's speech at the opening of the next Parliament admitted 
the unexpected success of the Mahdi in the Soudan. It also referred 
to the steps taken to relieve Khartoum by the despatch of General 
Gordon to that doomed city. There was to be a Reform bill, a bill to 
improve the Government of London, Sunday closing in Ireland, and 
intermediate education in Wales. 

Gordon made an unsuccessful sortie from Khartoum in March and 
found that not only his army, but the civil population was honey- 
combed with treason. In vain he implored the Government to send 
troops to Berber to aid the escape of two thousand fugitives. Instead, 
the Government recalled General Graham and'his troops from Suakim, 
and the Arabs believed that Gordon was abandoned by his country- 
men. Gordon's negotiations with the Mahdi were a failure, and he 
protested against the desertion of Khartoum. The Government said 
that he was in no danger, and that when he was aid would be sent. 



VICTORIA, 



105 



In the Autumn the decision to send an expedition to Khartoum was 
arrived at with reluctance. Lord Wolseley went to Cairo. Down to 
the end of 1884 his proceedings were veiled in mystery. Dim rumors 
of Gordon's disgust at being abandoned reached England. Gordon 




JOHN BROWN. 



had sent General Stewart to Berber begging him to appeal to the mu- 
nificence of the people of the United States and the British Colonies. 
Stewart was murdered by natives. The Mahdi pressed the siege with 
redoubled energy. On the 16th of December, Wolseley joined the 



106 VICTORIA. 

camp at Korti and received intelligence from Gordon that Khartoum 
could hold out for forty days. Khartoum fell on the 26th of January ; 
the Buri gate had been opened b} 7 treachery to the Mahdi's troops who 
rushed in, and Gordon was killed for refusing to surrender. 

" A soldier fit to stand by Caesar and give direction." 

The Queen's letter to his sister was most sympathetic, and in it she 
speaks of " the stain left upon England for your dear brother's cruel, 
though heroic, fate." 

The coolness between Germany and England which marked the lat- 
ter half of 1884 was caused by the " scramble for Africa." 

The regions opened by Stanley had been practically occupied by the 
International Association, the head of which was the King of the Bel- 
gians. England, however, to exclude dangerous rivals, recognized the 
absolute claims of Portugal to hold the outlet of the Congo. Ger- 
many united the Powers to quash this policy. There was a strip of 
land extending from Cape Colony to the Portuguese frontier on the 
Congo, in which a Bremen firm had established a trading settlement at 
Angra Pequena. They applied to Prince Bismarck for protection. He 
asked Lord Granville if England claimed sovereignty over this region, 
and if the government could give the German traders the protection 
they wanted. The answer was that England had only proclaimed 
sovereignty at certain points along the coast, any encroachment on it 
by a foreign power would be regarded accordingly. In December 
Bismarck repeated his question. The dispatch was left unanswered 
for six months. Bismarck stung by affront answered it in his own way 
by annexing Angra Pequena to Germany. 

The year 1884 brought much sorrow to the Royal family. On the 
28th of March the Duke of Albany died at Cannes. The Queen was 
so prostrated with grief that her condition alarmed her attendants. As 
soon as she rallied she sent the Princess Beatrice to Claremont House 
to comfort the Duchess of Alban}\ All the details of the funeral ar- 
rangements were superintended by the Queen ; the body was brought 
back to England by the Prince of Wales, and was buried on the 5th of 
April with solemn pomp in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Soon after 
this death the Queen was recommended to go to Germany, and she 
visited her son-in-law and grandchildren at Darmstadt, where the 
marriage of the Princess Victoria of Hesse and Prince Louis of Bat- 
tenberg was celebrated at the end of the month (April.) The wed- 
ding ceremony as usual was pretty, but rather quiet under the cir- 
cumstances. 

London was dull and gloomy. During August the Queen was much 



VICTORIA. 



107 



troubled as to the issue of the crisis arising from the Reform bill de- 
bates and the threatened conflict between the Democracy and the 
House of Lords. She deprecated at attack on the Peers during the 
recess, and Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues paid due deference to her 




THE DUKE OF ALBANY. 



wishes. She made it clear that she was unwilling to use her preroga- 
tive for the purpose of creating new Peers to force the Reform bill 
through the Upper House. From this it was inferred that if the 



108 VICTORIA. 

House of Lords resisted to the end, the Queen would prefer to coerce 
them by a dissolution rather than by prerogative. 

Before the court left Osborne the Queen surprised the country by an- 
nouncing her decision to confer the Order of the Garter on Prince George 
of Wales, for there was no precedent for giving the Garter to a junior 
member of the Royal family in his minority. When the Queen came 
to the Throne there were only four Royal Knights of this Order, and 
pedants of heraldry now complained that there were twenty-eight, and 
that the Royal Knights outnumbered the ordinary ones. 

Gladstone went to Balmoral and anent the Reform bill earnestly dep- 
recated the obstinacy of the Peers, and so clearly pointed out the dif- 
ficulty of avoiding collision that Her Majesty subsequently used all 
her influence to bring about a compromise. The supreme difficulty of 
effecting this compromise lay in breaking down the resistance of Lord 
Salisbury and the Tory Peers who were resolved to force a dissolution 
on the basis of the old franchise. 

This resistance gradually weakened after Gladstone's visit to Bal- 
moral. That it finally disappeared was mainly due to the firm but 
gentle pressure which the Queen put on the Duke of Richmond in 
order to induce him and his colleagues to accept a compromise. 

Eighteen hundred and eighty-five has been called the admirable year 
of the Queen's reign. It witnessed the final settlement of the Reform 
question which the Whigs had left unsettled in 1832. It witnessed 
the amazing development of the Home Rule movement in Ireland 
under two influences— the extended franchise, and the alliance between 
the Parnellites and the Tory party. There was an end of the Egyptian 
tragedy; there was the conquest of Burmah ; the General Election 
which made Parnell master of Ireland and shattered the English Party 
system that had been built up after 1846, and the rumored adoption of 
Home Rule as a part of Gladstone's programme. 

The most remarkable social event of the }~ear was the betrothal of the 
Princess Beatrice to Prince Henry of Battenberg, the younger brother 
of Prince Louis who had married the Princess' niece, Victoria of 
Hesse. For fourteen years the Princess had been the close companion 
of the Queen, and their lives had in time become so closely inter- 
twined that a separation could hardly be contemplated with equanimity 
by either. It was therefore quite natural that Prince Hemy, whose 
fortune was scarcely adequate to the maintenance of a separate estab- 
lishment, should permit intimation to be made that he was to live with 
the Princess in attendance on the Queen. 



VICTORIA. 



109 



The match was not entirely congenial to the family — poor Batten- 
berg who was not to live so many years afterward. 

The death of the " Red Prince " sent the English court into mourn- 
ing. He was the father of the Duchess of Connaught, to whom he 
bequeathed a large part of his vast wealth. 




PRINCE HENRY OF BATTENBERG. 



The Court removed to Osborne, the Queen being desirous c?f per- 
sonally superintending the arrangements of the Princess Beatrice 3 
marriage, which was to take place at Whippingham Parish. Church. 

Ou the 23d of July the marriage was solemnized by the Archbishop 



110 VICTORIA. 

of Canterbury, the Bishop of Winchester, the Dean of Windsor, and 
Canon Prothero, Vicar of Whippington. The ceremony was one of 
demi-state only. The wedding was very charming, yet somehow the 
ceremony seemed to lack the courtly importance and dignity of the 
other Royal marriages, the absence of the German Crown Prince and 
Princess being only too noticeable. The German Emperor who had 
been affronted by a political scandal of the Court of Darmstadt did 
not look kindly on the Prince of Battenberg. 

After the marriage the Queen conferred the order of the Garter on 
Prince Henry of Battenberg — adding one more to the already crowded 
companionship of the Royal Knights. This distinction had never before 
been given to a foreign personage not a monarch de facto, or born in 
the Royal caste, and there can be no doubt that the other Royal 
Knights in the family would have considered a lesser order a more suit- 
able distinction for Prince Henry. The husband of Princess Beatrice 
had not espoused a lot for which he might be grateful, loving his wife 
though he did and being loved by her. Few of the Royal Circle were 
especially friendly in their relations with him, and society which takes 
its cue from its leaders was not long in letting him see that he was 
regarded as an intruder. The Queen made up all that she could in 
uniform kindness and consideration, and grew to love her daughter's 
husband as a son, but for all that, and for all the difficult duties the 
Prince performed he was more or less persona grata. It was soon 
plainly intimated to the Queen that the Royal rank and precedence 
conferred on Prince Henry of Battenberg would not be recognized at 
Berlin, Vienna and St. Petersburg. 

In the spring of 1885 a rebellion of French half-breeds in the Cana- 
dian Northwest, led by Riel, one of the pardoned insurgents who had 
been engaged in the Red River rising, was suppressed with great skill 
and ability by the Canadian Militia, and Riel was tried and hanged for 
treason. 

The misrule of Theebaw, the half-crazy King of Burmah, together 
with his intrigues with the French — then busy with the conquest of 
Ton quin — led to disputes between the Indian and Burmese Govern* 
ments. The result Avas a war which ended in the deposition of King 
Theebaw and the annexation of upper Burmah to the Indian Empire. 
As the celebration of the Queen's Jubilee was now within measurable 
distance, already there were great manifestations of popular feeling in 
favor of Imperial Unity. In 1886 the Imperial Federation League was 
founded for the purpose of drawing closer the bonds between the colo- 
nies and the Mother Country. The Indian and Colonial Exhibition at 



VICTORIA. 



Ill 



South Kensington was organized by the Prince of Wales on a scale of 
splendor which attracted visitors from all parts of the world. It was 
opened with great pomp and ceremony by the Queen on the 4th of 
May, in the presence of the more prominent members of the Royal 




THE PRINCESS BEATRICE. 



family, the dignitaries of Church and State, and the representatives of 
India and the Colonies. This great display of the vast resources of the 
Empire soon degenerated into a mere lounge, but it brought together 
numbers of able men from every quarter of the globe interested in the 



112 VICTORIA. 

problem of Imperial Federation, and the Prince of Wales dexterously 
seized the opportunity thus created for him to establish a centre and 
rallying point for British Imperialism. He started the movement that 
ended in the foundation of the Imperial Institute. 

Daring the absence of the Court in Scotland the Prince and Prin- 
cess of Wales stimulated the gaiety of the London Season. It was 
remarkable for the prevalence of Sunday reunions, the patronage of 
which by the Heir Apparent soon made them fashionable even among 
church- going people. 

On the 2d of July the Queen reviewed ten thousand troops at Alder- 
shot. She attended the brilliant garden party given that month by the 
Prince and Princess of Wales at Marlborough House, and then accom- 
panied by the Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg left 
Windsor for Osborne, where she was soon absorbed in business attend- 
ant on a change of Ministry. On the 17th of July Her Majesty left Os- 
borne for Edinburgh where on the eighteenth she opened the Interna- 
tional Exhibition. On the 5th of November she visited the Duke and 
Duchess of Buccleuch and inspected the Hospital for Incurables at 
Edinburgh. On the twenty-second of the same month Her Majesty 
received at Windsor with much ceremony their Imperial Highnesses, the 
Prince and Princess Komatsu of Japan, and a few days later the 
Court removed to Osborne. 

The Queen was now an aging woman, seen very seldom by her 
people, and seeming to the uninitiated to lay little stress on her po- 
sition. Since she had come into power a wholly different mode pre- 
vailed ; the gran.de dame and the courtly gentleman had gone out, and 
in their stead was the free and independent woman whose title was 
merely a "handle" in time of need, and the man with a pedigree 
several yards in length was not above engaging in trade that promised 
a return of riches which should enable him to live as lived the kings 
of finance whose origin might be unknown, but whose bank accounts 
made even crowned heads bow before them. If elegance of a severe 
or an insipid sort had vanished, a more sensible regime was come in its 
stead, even though money-getting seemed the end in all of every en- 
deavor. The world was better than it had ever been, oppression w r as 
denounced, the poor were looked after, and the people, the common 
people, had their opinions which even a Royal Autocrat must respect. 

It was democracy, brotherhood. And from this did there arise 
hatred for the woman sitting on the throne ? Hers had been a wise 
and beneficent reign, pure and generous ; the people no longer feared, 
the sound of a title, but they loved the name of their Queen. 



VICTORIA. 



113 



It was on the 20th of June, 1886, that the Queen entered on the 
fiftieth year of her reign. But she naturally assumed that she would 
live till the end of that year, and the actual celebration of the Jubilee 
was put off till June 20th, of the following year. 




MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS BEATRICE. 



Public interests in politics was lost, the attention of the country was 
concentrated on the Queen. It was known that she would come from 
the seclusion that had so long been hers, and to some degree drop the 
mourning weeds she had worn so many years. 

The first note of the Jubilee was struck in India, where the Imperial 
festival was celebrated in February. In presidency towns, inland 
cities, even in Mandalay, the newly acquired State of Upper Burmah, 
natives and Europeans vied with each other in proclaiming the event. 
Banquets, reviews, illuminations were not the only methods adopted 
for celebrating the Jubilee, At Gwalior all arrears of land tax, 



114 VICTORIA. 

amounting to a million pounds sterling were remitted ; libraries, col- 
leges, schools, water works, hospitals, and dispensaries were open d in 
honor of the Empress. 

All over England preparations were now making for the celebration 
of the great anniversar}^ Public parks, libraries, town halls, museums, 
hospitals were regarded as the best method of honoring the occasion. 
There was one Jubilee institution of great grandeur that w 1 public 
favor — the Imperial Institute that was originated by the Prince of 
Wales. 

In March congratulatory addresses began to pour in. The 23d of 
March Her Majesty opened the new Law Courts in Birmingham. The 
Democratic demonstration at Birmingham gave point to the passage 
in the Laureate's Jubilee ode : — 

" Are there thunders moaning in the distance? 
Are there spectres moving in the darkness? 
Trust the Lord of Light to guide her people 
Till the thunders pass, the spectres vanish, 
And the Light is victor, and the darkness 
Dawns into the Jubilee of the Ages." 

On the 4th of May Her Majesty received the representatives of the 
Colonial Governments who presented her with addresses, congratulat- 
ing her on having witnessed during her reign, her Colonial subjects in- 
creased to upward of nine million souls, her Indian subjects to two 
hundred and fifty-four millions, and her subjects in minor dependencies 
to seven millions. 

The same month she received the Maharajah and Maharanee of 
Kutch Behar and Maharajah Sir Pertab Sing, and held a Drawing-room, 
and visited Buffalo Bill's " Wild West Show" at Earl's Court. On 
the 14th she opened the People's Palace at Whitechapel which had 
grown out of a suggestion in Walter Besant's romance of " All Sorts 
and Conditions of Men." 

The Jubilee itself was celebrated on the 21st of June. The streets of 
London were decorated beyond recognition. Fabulous prices had been 
paid for seats on the line of the procession. Only thrice in the history 
of England had a Jubilee been celebrated, and in none of these cases 
was there, as now, ground for unalloyed joy. Henry III. had a dis- 
tracted reign, that of Edward III. was clouded with disaster at the 
end, and George III. had lost America. 

It was not till the head of the procession moved along from Buck- 
ingham Palace and the Royal carriages came in sight, that the feelings 
of the dense masses of spectators found utterance in volley after volley 




/;• S"' 



QUEEN VICTOEIA. (1887). 



VICTORIA. 115 

of cheers. The Queen's face was tremulous with emotion as she bowed 
to the people. Beside her were the Princess of Wales and the German 
Crown Princess. The loyal tumult all along literally drowned the 
blare of bands and trumpets. 

The first part of the procession consisted of carriages in which were 
gorgeous Indian Princes blazing with jewels, who had come from India 
to celebrate the Jubilee of their Empress. Then came carriages with 
the Duchess of Teck, the Persian and Siamese guests of the Queen, 
the Queen of Hawaii, the Kings of Saxony, Belgium, and Greece, and 
the Austrian Crown Prince. Then came life guards, lacqueys of the 
Court, outriders in scarlet. In the first part of the procession were 
carriages conveying the Princesses of the Royal families. Between 
these carriages and that of the Queen rode the Princes. In the first 
rank the Queen's grandsons, Prince Albert Victor and Prince William 
of Prussia being among the most conspicuous. Then came the Queen's 
sons-in-law, the central figure being the German Crown Prince so soon 
to become Emperor of Germany. After these came Her Majesty's 
sons, the Duke of Connaught, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of 
Wales. Then came the Queen. 

The scene in Westminster Abbey was impressive. Silver trumpets 
announced the coming of the Queen. Clad in black, but with a bon- 
net of white Spanish lace glittering with diamonds, and wearing the 
Orders of the Garter and Star of India, she was escorted by the Lord 
Chamberlin, amid the peals of the Abbey organ, to the Royal dais, and 
when the Princes and Princesses in her train had arranged themselves 
the picture was of imposing magnificence. 

The Thanksgiving service was brief and simple. The Primate and 
the Dean of Westminster officiated, while the music was largely se- 
lected from the compositions of the Prince Consort. 

The Queen was several times overcome with emotion. The Prince 
of Wales bent forward and kissed her hand, but Her Majesty raises 
her bent face and salutes him on the cheek. The German Crown 
Prince and the Grand Duke of Hesse pay their homage, but the emo- 
tion of the moment was too strong for Court ceremonial, and the 
Queen discards etiquette and embraces the Princes and Princesses with 
unreserved affection. Then she turns to the German Crown Prince 
and kisses him warmly on the cheek. 

Making a profound bow to her foreign guests, the Queen quitted the 
scene as the " March of the Priests " in Athalie pealed forth from the 
organ. The procession was now formed again, and the sovereign re- 
turned to Buckingham Palace, the crowd along the way even more en- 



116 VICTORIA. 

thusiastic than when they had greeted her on the way to the abbey. 
At night there was a general illumination. All over England and in 
the North of Ireland the Jubilee was celebrated as enthusiastically. 
The illumination of Edinburgh is said to have been even finer than that 
of the metropolis. 

Eight peerages, thirteen baronetcies and thirty-three knighthoods 
were conferred in honor of the event. A royal amnesty to deserters 
was proclaimed. 

In the colonies the day was celebrated joyously, and in foreign lands 
the British residents made festivals. In the United States the citizens 
of the Republic joined the British residents honoring the occasion. 

But of all the Jubilee celebrations perhaps the most novel was that 
held in Hyde Park. A few weeks before Jubilee clay it occurred to 
Mr. Edward Lawson of the Daily Telegraph, that there was a fatal 
omission in the official programme. Elaborate arrangements had been 
made to interest all classes but one — the school children, the men and 
women of the next generation. Mr. Lawson determined that this omis- 
sion should be remedied, and the whole town was taken with the idea. 
Mr. Lawson found himself honorary treasurer of the children's Jubilee 
Fund. Great ladies took a hand, and on the 22d of June twenty-seven 
thousand children from all parts of London were entertained in Hyde 
Park. The Queen not only came out and greeted them, but the little 
ones received her with such delight that she was profoundly touched. 

On the 24th of June an evening party was given at Buckingham 
Palace which was attended by nearly all of the Queen's family, by the 
foreign sovereigns and Princes then in London, and by a throng of dis- 
tinguished persons. 

On the 25th of June a letter evidently from the Queen's heart was 
sent to the Home Secretary thanking the nation for their display of 
loyalty and love. In this communication it seems as though the Queen 
laid bare her heart to the people with a frank and simple confidence 
rare in the relations that subsist between sovereigns and their subjects. 

On the 27th Her Majesty received at Windsor Castle congratulatory 
deputations from municipalities, friendlv societies, and public bodies 
and professional associations, representing every phase of English life, 
and thought and enterprize. 

The Queen's garden party at Buckingham palace on the following 
Wednesday was attended by several thousand guests. 

On the 2d of Jul} r the Queen, from Buckingham Palace, reviewed 
twenty-eight thousand Metropolitan Volunteers. 

On the 4th of July the crowning event of the Jubilee Festival oc- 



VICTORIA. 



117 



curred. On that day the Queen laid the foundation stone of the 
Imperial Institute in the Albert Hall. Noting the growing Imperial- 
ism which the Jubilee called forth the Prince of Wales determined to 
fix it by embodying it in some permanent institution. In spite of dis- 




THE QUEEN'S PRIVATE SITTING-ROOM, OSBORNE. 

tracted counsels, inter-colonial jealousy and much anti monarchical op- 
position, the necessary funds for the purpose were raised, but it was 
universally admitted that but for the incessant work of the Heir Ap- 
parent the scheme would have fallen through. The Institute was and 
is meant to stand as an outward and visible sign of the necessary 
unity of the British Empire. It was to be a rallying point of all co- 
lonial movements, a centre of instruction for those who desire informa- 
tion as to colonial trade and colonial resources. In simple, what the 
Queen inaugurated on the 4th of July at Kensington as the culminating 
function of her fiftieth year of Queenhood, was a vast and ubiqui- 
tous Intelligence Department for her far-stretching dominions. 

The decorations of the building in which the ceremony took place 



118 VICTORIA. 

were composed of myriads of flowers, so that the scene was more 
beautiful than if the professional decorator had used the usual buntings 
and silly paraphernalia brought into time honored service on such oc- 
casions. When the Queen entered, preceded by the officers of her 
household, and escorted by her family, she took her seat on the draped 
platform, and found herself again surrounded by Kings and Princes. 
The Prince of Wales read an address to Her Majesty describing the 
aims and prospects of the institution. Lord Tennyson's health did not 
permit of his officiating as Laureate on this occasion, and Browning had 
always declared himself unable to produce ceremonial odes to order. 
The ode was written by Lewis Morris, and was set to music by Sir 
Arthur Sullivan. After it was finished the Queen, assisted by the 
Prince of Wales and the architect Colcutt, laid the first solid block of 
the building, a slab of granite weighing three tons. Prayers were read 
by the Primate, after which the commissioners of the exhibition of 1851 
presented an address congratulating the Queen on the celebration of 
her Jubilee. Her Majesty then leaning on the arm of the Prince of 
Wales left the hall while the band struck up " Rule Britannia." 

The ceremonial differed from that which took place in the Abbey in 
one respect. The Thanksgiving service threw the- minds of Sovereign 
and subject back to the past with all its trials and triumphs, but the 
function in the Royal Albert Hall struck the note of the future, and 
invited speculation as to the part which the monarchy should play in 
the evolution of the English speaking race. The Institute typified the 
inheritance of Empire which Englishmen had won during the reign by 
their toil and their enterprise. 

As Lewis Morris sang, 

" To-day we would make free 

The millions of their glorious heritage. 
Here, Labor crowds in hopeless misery ; 

There, in unbounded work and ready wage. 
The salt breeze calling stirs our Northern blood, 
Lead we the toilers to their certain goal; 

Guide we their feet to where 

Is spread, for those who dare, 

A happier Britain, 'neath an ampler air. 
******** 
First Lady of our British race, 

'Tis well that with thy peaceful Jubilee 

This glorious dream begins to be." 

"With this great function the record of the Queen's career through 
half a century may close. A retrospective glance over that career is 
not without its worth. 



VICTORIA. 119 

Only seventeen years elapsed between the death of George III. and 
the accession of Victoria to the sovereignty of a people " who had let 
a virgin continent slip through their hands " and who were not only 
exhausted by wars, but had at the same time exhausted the nations that 
trafficked with them. England then had but one hope of resuscitation. 
It was to bind the forces of nature to industry. To this end she bent 
all her energies of intellect and genius. The Victorian period repre- 
sents the triumphs of applied sciences rather than the softer apotheosis 
of the arts and the humanities. " The true founders of modern Eng- 
land," to quote Spencer Walpole, "are its inventors and engineers." 
The power which the British Empire now represents has therefore 
been built up under the Queen's sceptre. 

"The political results of the reign of Victoria in England may be 
described as tending in a direction eminently democratic. The asser- 
tion of the doctrine that the sovereign reigns, but does not govern, has 
become, for the first time in English history, under her, completely 
established. 

" In her early days she was prevented from following the autocratic 
examples of her uncles and her grandfather by the prudent advice of 
those about her. In her womanhood she abstained from all interfer- 
ence with her Ministers, actuated by her personal experience and con- 
victions of the necessities of the English monarchy, and when woman- 
hood was declining into age she consequently did not feel the tempta- 
tion, as affairs certainly would not have admitted the possibility of re- 
verting to the traditions of a regime that had become an anachronism. 
Thus it is that the government of England, whatever its title, is in 
reality a veiled republicanism. Henceforward, whoever sits upon the 
throne of England must be content to know that divine right, perhaps 
even family right, has nothing to do with his title to allegiance, and 
that he derives the charter of his sovereignty from a people's will. 

"But, though Queen Victoria has been satisfied to hold her sceptre 
upon these conditions, she declined in minor matters of ceremonial or 
of state to surrender an atom of her personal dignity or her individual 
will. If the rebuke which she caused to be administered to Lord 
Palmerston on the occasion on which he had foregone the formality of 
showing her a diplomatic document before its final despatch were the 
only instance of her hostile collision w T ith a Minister of State after the 
bedchamber dispute, there have been many cases in which she has 
asserted her determination to insist upon all the usages of royal eti- 
quette. It is even upon authentic record that more than one bishop, 
although singled out for promotion, was not finally advanced, in defer- 
8 



120 VICTORIA. 

ence to her desire, while in the lesser classes of ecclesiastical appoint- 
ments — canonries, archdeaconries, and so forth — her wish was fre- 
quently expressed, and was acted upon by her Ministers. Undoubt- 
edly, though the Queen has successfully preserved the appearance of 
impartiality in conferring with the successive chiefs of her govern- 
ments, she has had her favorite statesmen, just as she has had her 
favorite divines. It was perhaps the result of that peculiar state of 
mind which, more or less, became chronic with her after her husband's 
death, partly also of that tenderness with which by the force of asso- 
ciation all things connected with Scotland inspired her, that she con- 
tracted such an admiration for Scotch Presbyterian and Free Kirk 
theology. 

44 The clerical teachers for whom she has exhibited the most prefer- 
ence in England have belonged to that class of whom Dr. Stanley, the 
Dean of Westminister, may be taken as a type. Her Majesty liked 
the Broad Church clergyman and the Low Church, but detested the 
High ; she was as severe a critic of the oratory of the pulpit as she was 
of the manner in which a regiment — for the Queen had a keen eye to 
military effect — performed its march past, or an army went through 
the intricate tactics of a field day. Not unnaturally the Queen is be- 
lieved to have regarded with special favor the surviving whig states- 
men and their modern successors, the liberals, and she certainly liked 
Mr. Gladstone and John Bright better than she did Mr. Disraeli or 
Lord Derby. 

44 These, however, were sentiments of which the nation, if aware at 
all, was never made inconveniently aware. Whatever her political 
predilections, the machinery of government has gone on all the same, 
and the only measure on whose passing the Queen is believed to have 
exercised any influence was the Public Worship Regulation bill of 
1874. It was rather the personal eccentricities which displayed them- 
selves continuously or at intervals in her after the death of her hus- 
band that gave, not altogether unjustly to her subjects, some ground 
of grievance." 

So far as the public life of the Queen has affected her house it has 
been done in but one direction. At her accession the Crown had 
almost entirely lost its meaning as a governing order in the state. At 
her Golden Jubilee the Crown held a position of authority higher than 
any to which it had attained since William of Orange. According to 
Gladstone the effects of the Queen's policy had been due to her 44 de- 
termination to acquire influence rather than power for the monarchy." 
But if the historian be right in insisting that power can be most surely 



VICTORIA. 121 

kept by the means whereby it was acquired, this may be read in the 
lesson of the Queen's life. 

There were to be ten years more before the culmination of the Queen's 
life as a sovereign — the Diamond Jubilee. In these years the woman- 
heart was to be tried in many ways, death in the Royal family was to 
make its inroads, that of the Princess Royal's husband, Frederick, who 
had succeeded his father as Emperor of Germany ; and Prince Henry 
of Battenberg. Perplexities in political matters were to occasion wony 
and anxiety, and there were to be wars and rumors of wars, though 
happily none of any great significance. 

It would seem that the Golden Jubilee was no sooner over than the 
thought of the public took in the possibility of Her Majesty completing 
her sixtieth year as a queen, which was only ten years off. She would 
then be a woman far advanced in years, but the probabilities were that 
her life would be spared. 

In 1897 the world was to see a celebration such as no other period of 
the world's history had ever witnessed. Her Majesty was in reason- 
ably good health when the year opened, and week by week the advent 
of June was looked forward to. Preparations for the great event were 
reported from this one part of the earth to all the others, and it is safe 
to say that in no quarter of the globe was there any feeling but one of 
rejoicing for the celebration. 

As the months brought it nearer, London began to be crowded, a 
hundred thousand people from the United States alone going thither. 
In the beginning of June it was seen what a tremendous access to the 
population might be expected, at least an increase of three millions was 
anticipated. There was little thought of housing this great multitude, 
that is, no structures were erected for their accommodation, conse- 
quently prices prevailed in accordance with the importance of the func- 
tion and the congested state of the city guaranteed. 

The jubilee programme follows: 

Monday, June 21. — Her Majesty arrives at Buckingham Palace 
12.30 P. M. Afternoon, the Queen receives her imperial and royal 
guests. Evening, royal full dress banquet at Buckingham Palace, fol- 
lowed by reception of the Diplomatic Corps. 

Tuesday, June 22. — Queen's Day. Morning, the procession to St. 
Paul's. Evening, Her Majesty rests. Second royal banquet, Bucking- 
ham Palace, the Prince of Wales presiding, followed by a state concert. 
Illumination of London and the empire. During the day celebrations 
all over the world. 

"Wednesday, June 23. — Morning, the Queen receives addresses from 



122 VICTORIA. 

the Houses of Parliament. Afternoon, the Queen attends the garden 
party at Buckingham Palace, for which six thousand invitations have 
been issued. Evening, the Queen attends a royal banquet at the 
Palace. Home and foreign royalties attend Lady Salisbury's ball at 
the Foreign Office. 

Thursday, June 24. — Morning, in semi-state the Queen and Court go 
to Windsor. Her Majesty alights at Slough, and driving through Eton 
is received by the college boys. Evening, banquet at Windsor Castle. 
The Queen reviews a torchlight procession of Eton boys. 

Friday, June 25. — Afternoon, the Queen, with the Prince of Wales 
as inspecting officer, reviews the fire brigades of England. Evening, 
state banquet in St. George's Hall, at which all imperial and royal 
guests will be present. 

Saturday, June 26. — Afternoon, the Prince of Wales, on behalf of 
the Queen, reviews the fleet at Spithead. Evening, illumination of the 
fleet. 

The presents sent Her Majesty were of exceptional magnificence, and 
from crowned heads and the commonalty they were received in count- 
less profusion. 

The ceremonies began on the 20th, " Accession Day." 

Throughout London, the United Kingdom and the Empire, in every 
cathedral, church or chapel of the Established Church of England were 
held services similar to those at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, where 
Her Majesty paid her devotions, and offered solemn thanksgiving. 

The announcement that the services at St. George's Chapel would 
be private and for the members of the Royal family prevented the 
gathering of a large crowd. The scene was most impressive and the 
service very simple. Her Majesty sat in the chair of state immediately 
in front of the communion rail, and just beside the brass plate whose 
inscription designates the spot which was the temporary place of inter- 
ment of the Prince Consort. 

The ladies and gentlemen who are the grand officers of the Queen's 
household entered first, followed by the military Knights of Windsor 
in the full costume of cocked hats and scarlet coats. The Duke of 
Devonshire and Lord Roseberry occupied their stalls as Knights of the 
Garter. The rest of the church was empty, the seats of the Royal 
family being near the Queen's. 

The Dean of Windsor, wearing the insignia of Chaplain of the Order 
of the Garter, officiated, assisted by the Lord Bishop of Barry and 
several canons. 

Punctually at eleven o'clock, amid the soft strains of an organ vol- 




The Lord Chancellor Presenting the Address of the House of Lords to Her Majesty 

at Buckingham Palace. 



VICTORIA. 123 

untary, the Queen arrived from the cloisters at the entrance. Assisted 
by her Indian attendant she walked slowly to the chair of State, the 
congregation standing. She was dressed all in black,, except for a 
white tuft in her bonnet. The widowed Empress, Frederick of Ger- 
many, attired in deep black, took the seat at the right of the Queen, 
while the Duke of Connaught, wearing his Windsor, uniform, seated 
himself at her left. The others grouped themselves closely behind and 
looked very like a simple family of worshippers. 

There was no sermon, but a special hymn, written by the Right Rev. 
William Walsham, Lord Bishop of Wakefield, with music by Sir Arthur 
Sullivan, was sung at Her Majesty's request. The third verse was as 
follows: 

" O, royal heart, with wide embrace 

For all her children yearning ! 
Oh, happy realm, such mother grace 

"With loyal love returning! 
Where England's flag flies wide unfurled, 

All tyrant wrongs repelling, 
God make the world a better world 

For man's brief earthly dwelling." 

Before the benediction the following special thanksgiving was offered : 

" Oh, Lord, our heavenly Father, we give Thee hearty thanks for 
the many blessings which Thou hast bestowed upon us during the 
sixty years of the happy reign of our gracious Queen, Victoria. We 
thank Thee for progress made in knowledge of Thy marvelous works, 
for increase of comfort given to human life, for kindlier feeling between 
Church and poor, for wonderful preaching of the Gospel to many 
nations, and we pray Thee that these and all Thy other gifts may be 
long continued to us and to our Queen, to the glory of Thy holy name, 
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen." 

The choir of St. George's Chapel rendered the musical portion of 
the service, Sir Walter Parret presiding at the organ. The service 
lasted forty minutes, the Queen remaining seated throughout and fol- 
lowing closely the special prayers and hymn. 

At the end there was a pause. The Queen, with bowed head, con- 
tinued in silent prayer. Then followed a touching scene, which will 
ever linger in the memory of those who witnessed it. Summoning 
Empress Frederick, who bowed low at her side, the Queen kissed her 
on both cheeks. The Duke of Connaught and the others of the family 
followed, receiving on bended knee a similar token of affection. In 
many cases the recipient was kissed several times. 



124 VICTORIA. 

The Queen was profoundly moved, and tears rolled down her cheeks. 
At last, and evidently with great reluctance, she beckoned her Indian 
attendant, and leaning on his arm passed slowly out of the chapel, the 
entire congregation standing, the soft light falling through the multi- 
colored windows and the exquisite strains of the organ rising and 
swelling beneath the Gothic bannered roof. It was a scene never to 
be forgotten, and thrilled all present with strong emotions. 

There were two services at St. Paul's Cathedral, at 11 A. M. and at 
3 P. M. 

Immense crowds filled all the approaches to the cathedral at the 
morning service, anxious to catch a glimpse of the royalties and dis- 
tinguished personages who were announced to be present, including all 
the Protestant envoys. 

Just before eleven the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Lon- 
don and the Dean of the Cathedral, with the Cathedral clergy and choir, 
proceeded to the west door to receive the members of the Royal family. 
The aisle was lined with a guard of honor, consisting of the medical 
staff corps, in view of the fact that it was hospital Sunday. 

The members of the royal family arrived punctually and were re- 
ceived, as they drove through the streets to the Cathedral, with the 
profoundest respect. Among them were the Prince and Princess of 
Wales, the Duke and Duchess of York, the Duke of Cambridge, the 
Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Charles of Den- 
mark and Princess Charles, Prince Albert of Prussia, Grand Duke and 
Duchess of Hesse, Grand Duke Cyril of Russia, Prince Waldemar of 
Denmark, Prince Eugene of Sweden, the Grand Duke of Luxemburg 
and the Prince and Princess Frederick Charles of Hesse. 

Preceded by the clergy and amid the strains of the processional 
hymn, 

" O, King of kings, 
Whose reign of old 
Hath been from everlasting," 

they proceeded to their seats. 

The service was conducted by the Lord Bishop of London, and the 
celebrated Cathedral choir of one hundred and fifty male voices, as- 
sisted by an orchestra of one hundred and fifty from Covent Garden 
Opera House and several of the principal theatres, rendered the musi- 
cal portions. The form of service was the same as at St. George's 
Chapel, and was participated in by the vast congregation with evident 
feeling. To the invocation of the priest, "Send her help from Thy 
Holy Place," came the deep response of the kneeling multitude : 



VICTORIA. 125 

" And evermore mightily defend her," while in impressive unison 
came the " Amen," following the priest's words, " Let her reign be long 
and prosperous and crown her with immortality in the life to come." 

Holy Communion was celebrated and the sermon was preached by 
the Lord Bishop of London, who touched upon many events in the reign 
of Victoria, and eloquently extolled her piety, charity and motherly 
love for the people. 

„ At Westminster Abbey, the services were specially grand, the Peers 
wearing their robes of scarlet and ermine. 

Special despatches from Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg and 
nearly every large city in Europe show that thanksgiving services 
were held in the local English churches, numerously attended. The 
newspapers in many cities, especially Vienna and St. Petersburg, pub- 
lish long eulogistic articles upon the Victorian reign. 

At Constantinople, the Saltan sent a number of high Ottoman of- 
ficials to represent him at the service, and the entire Diplomatic Corps 
was present. A guard of English blue -jackets was drawn up along 
the main approach to the chapel. 

At St. George's Chapel, Windsor, in the afternoon a special musical 
service was held at which most of the members of the Royal family, 
except the Queen and Empress Frederick were present. Mendels- 
sohn's " Hymn of Praise " was superbly sung by Madame Albani, Ed- 
ward Lloyd and the choir of the chapel, assisted by the Windsor and 
Eton Choral and Madrigal Societies. Sir Walter Parret presided at 
the organ and conducted Her Majesty's private band. 

The Laureate, Alfred Austin, composed the ode which was of thirty 
stanzas. It begins by describing how, when " they placed a crown 
upon her fair young brow," 

"Silent, she gazed as one who doth not know 
The meaning of a message. When she broke 
The hush of awe around her, 'twas as though 
Her soul that spoke. 

"With this dread summons, since 'tis Heaven's decree, 
I would not palter even if I could, 
But, being a woman only, I can be 
Not great, but good. 

"I cannot don the breastplate and the helm ; 
To my weak waist the sword I cannot gird, 
Nor in the discords that distract a realm 
Be seen or heard. 



126 VICTORIA. 

"But in my people's wisdom will I share, 
And in their valor play a helpful part, 
Lending them still in all they do or dare 
My woman's heart. 

11 Never be broken, long as I shall reign, 

The solemn covenant 'twixt them and me, 
To keep this Kiugdom, moated by the main, 
Loyal, yet free." 

The poet laureate refers to her "princely helpmate, scorner of wrong 
and love of right," and continues, in the eighteenth stanza of the poem : 

"So when the storm of wrath arose that drave 

Scared rulers from their realms, her throne, deep laid 
In liberty and trust, calm shelter gave 
To kings dismayed." 

The poem then tells of her sorrow at her husband's death, but how 
" I am nuptialed to my people above and their deathless will " and 
concludes from the twenty-fourth stanza as follows: 

" Then to the winds yet wider was unfurled 
The flag that tyrants never could enslave, 
Till its strong wisdom governed half the world 
And all the wave. 

" And panoplied alike for war or peace, 

Victoria's England furroweth still the foam, 
To harvest Empire wider than was Greece, 
Wider than Eome. 

44 Therefore, with glowing hearts and proud, glad tears, 
The children of her island realm to-day 
Recall her sixty veuerable years 
Of virtuous sway. 

"Now, too, from where the St. Lawrence winds adown 
'Twixt forests felled and plains that feel the plow, 
And Ganges jewels the Imperial Crown 
That girds her brow. 

" From Afric's cape, where loyal watch-dogs bark, 
And Britain's sceptre ne'er shall be withdrawn; 
And that young continent that greets the dark 
When we the dawn. 

" From steel-capped promontories, stern and strong, 
And lone isles mounting guard upon the main; 
Hither her subjects wend to hail her long, 
Resplendent reign. 



VICTORIA. 127 

" And ever, when mid-June's musk roses bloom, 
Our race will celebrate Victoria's name ; 
And even England's greatness gain a glow 
From her pure fame." 

On Monday, the 21st, the second day of the celebration, Queen Vic- 
toria left Windsor Castle at noon by the sovereign's entrance, facing 
the Long Walk, and traversed part of the high Thames streets of 
Windsor, on her way to the railroad station. Her Majesty's carriage 
was drawn by a pair of grays, with postilions and outriders. The 
Queen was accompanied by her eldest daughter, Empress Frederick of 
Germany, and by Princess Christain of Schleswig-Holstein and Prin- 
cess Henry of Battenberg, who occupied another carriage, preceding 
that of Her Majesty. 

The Queen, on arriving at the railroad station of Windsor, walked 
through the private waiting room, leaning on the arm of an Indian at- 
tendant, and by a sloping gangway entered her saloon carriage. 

Paddiugton was reached at 12.30. Here the immense terminus had 
been transformed on the " up side " into a hall of resplendent crimson, 
garlanded with fringe gold, fragrant with the odor of countless blos- 
soms, walled on either side by parterres of people. The state carriages 
from Buckingham Palace were at the end of the covered way. As 
soon as the Queen had taken her seat, the life guards drew up in front 
and rear as a roar of cheers proclaimed to waiting thousands beyond 
that she had arrived. Before starting, a loyal address was presented 
by the Rev. Walter Abbott, Vicar of Paddington and Chairman of the 
Paddington Vestry, who was accompanied by the two Members of 
Parliament for Paddington. 

The route to Buckingham Palace was via Oxford and Cambridge 
Terrace, Grand Junction road and Edgeware road to the Marble Arch, 
thence by Hyde Park and Constitution Hill. Over the distance, ex- 
cepting the portion of Great Park, every house in the background of 
the picture was superbly decorated, flags, flowers, banners and festoons 
and endless mottoes on the order of the day : " God Save the Queen." 
At Edgeware road a handsome triumphal arch was erected by the Pad- 
dington authorities, and another had been put up by the Marylebone 
Vestry. 

The first triumphal arch was a very handsome, castellated structure 
in imitation of gray stone covered w T ith ivy, and bore the motto, " Thy 
hearts are our throne." 

The second triple arch was at the bottom of the Edgeware road. It 
was covered with crimson cloth, flowers and flags, and bore the motto, 
"God Bless Our Queen." 



128 VICTORIA. 

Throughout, the route was tenanted by an immense assemblage. 
Every window had its occupants, every roof its sightseers, every avail- 
able space in the street and square, sidewalk and gardens, the paths 
and chairs and even the trees and railings of the parks were black with 
loyal humanity. The Queen drove slowly to gratify her people. Her 
face eveiywhere loosened the voice of the multitude. Volleys of 
cheers rose clearly above the constant roar of acclamation. Hats were 
thrown in the air, handkerchiefs waved in welcome ; everyone vied 
with his neighbor in active demonstration of loyalty and delight. 

At four o'clock, in the afternoon, Her Majesty received the Imperial 
and Royal Envoys, in the Bow Drawing-room of Buckingham Palace. 

In the evening the Queen entertained at dinner ninety of her most 
distinguished guests. 

The spacious supper room was a fairy sight, exquisite costumes, dia- 
monds and countless gems, the most brilliant of uniforms, stars, orders 
and crosses without end, the royal liveries, the table and buffet loaded 
with the famous gold plate, the value of which runs into millions, and 
Dresden china, flowers and lights glittering up to the highly enriched 
ceiling, with its foliage and floral ornamentation, while in, around and 
over all was that air of Old World dignity, which is of itself so im- 
pressive. This seemed even to be reflected from the great mirrors be- 
tween the windows and to command the approval of the stately George 
IV. in his coronation robes upon the wall. 

After the dinner the Queen proceeded to the grand saloon to receive 
her guests, the Envoys and their suites, the Indian princes, the officers 
of the imperial forces and of the native Indian escorts .and the officers 
of the Queen's German regiment. 

The Colonial Premiers, with their wives, were presented to her 
Majesty by Mr. Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and 
the suites of royal and other guests were presented severally by their 
chiefs. The great officers of state attended in full court dress. 

United States Special Envoy, the Hon. Whitelaw Reicl, General Nel- 
son A. Miles, U. S. A., Rear Admiral J. N. Miller, U. S. N., and the 
members of the United States Special Embassy reached the Palace a 
few minutes after two o'clock. 

The Queen was dressed in black, wore a widow's cap, the ribbon of 
the Order of the Garter and some Orders. She sat in a gilded chair, 
near the centre of the room, the Prince of Wales standing immediate^ 
behind her. At her right hand was the Princess of Wales, and others 
of the Royal family were near Her Majesty or scattered about the room. 
The Duke of Auerstadt and the Dnke of Sotomayer, representing, re- 



VICTORIA. 129 

spectively, France and Spain, preceded the United States Envoy, Mr. 
Reid being third and followed by the Papal Envoy, Mgr. Sambncetti. 

Queen Victoria looked very well, indeed, and seemed to be very 
well pleased and interested in everything. She impressed all the En- 
voys with the sincerity of her thanks for the national compliments 
paid to her. 

The crowds remained about the palace until a late hour, watching 
the comings and goings of the many notabilities. 

The Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of 
York, on returning from Marlborough House, were received with roar 
upon roar of cheers. 

The children of the Duchess of York occupied seats on the garden 
wall at Clarence House. Their identity was soon discovered and for 
hours the garden wall was the Mecca of crowds of enthusiastic women 
and thousands of nurses and children. 

"If the streets to-night can be taken as a forecast for to-morrow, 
Queen's Day will be signalized by the assembling in London of not less 
than eight millions of human beings. At all the London termini since 
early morning people have been pouring into the metropolis in thou- 
sands. And for thousands there is no other shelter than the streets, 
but the utmost good humor prevailed." 

President McKinley sent the following personal letter to .Queen 
Victoria, which was delivered to her by Mr. Whitelaw Reid, Special 
Envoy : 

To Her Majesty, Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and Em- 
press of India. — Great and Good Friend. — In the name aud on behalf of the peo- 
ple of the United States I present their sincere felicitations upon the sixtieth anniversary 
of your Majesty's accession to the throne of Great Britain. 

I express the sentiments of my fellow citizens in wishing for your people the prolon- 
gation of a reign illustrious and marked by advance in science, arts and popular well-be- 
ing. On behalf of my countrymen I wish particularly to recognize your friendship for 
the United States, and your love of peace, exemplified upon important occasions. 

It is pleasing to acknowledge the debt of gratitude and respect due to your personal 
virtues. May your life be prolonged and peace, honor and prosperity bless the people 
over whom you have been called to rule. May liberty flourish throughout your empire, 
under just and equal laws, and your Government continue strong in the affections of all 
who live under it. 

And I pray God to have your Majesty in His holy keeping. 

Done at Washington, this 28th day of May, A. D., 1897. 

Your good friend, 

William McKinley 

By the President : 

John Sherman, 
Secretary of State. 



130 VICTORIA. 

A number of honors were conferred b}^ the Queen. 

First of all, no dukes were created. It was believed in London there 
would be five — a portentous accession to the short list of existing 
holders of this highest title in the peerage, of whom there are just 
thirty in all — English twenty-two, Scotch six — not counting the Prince 
of Wales, who is Duke of Rothsay, or the Duke of Argyll, whose title 
was turned into an English dukedom in 1892 — and Irish two. It 
would have been cruel, in the presence of this sad disappointment, to name 
the candidates or supposed candidates. The}^ were all marquises or 
earls, so that even without their expected promotion they held very 
comfortable positions in the aristocratic hierarchy known as the 
peerage. 

On Tuesday, the third day, the day of the great procession, the 
Queen breakfasted at nine o'clock and informed her physician that she 
was not fatigued by yesterday's ceremonies. Already in the great 
quadrangle of the palace there were many signs of the coming cere- 
monial. Gorgeously attired servants gathered near the scarlet carpeted 
staircase, which was lined by rare flowers, while the strains of the na- 
tional anthem as a band passed the palace, announced that the colonial 
parade had started. This the Queen looked upon from the windows 
of Buckingham Palace until it was time to take her place in line. 

At 11.10 A. M. a bustle on the main staircase announced the coming 
of Her Majesty. Queen Victoria slowly descended the stairs, assisted 
by a scarlet clad and white turbaned Indian attendant. She was dressed 
in black moire with a front and panels of soft grey silk of a shade of 
pigeon color. This was wrought all over with a fine silver embroidery 
in a design of rose, shamrock, and thistle. Her Majesty's cape was of 
black chiffon with many inserted designs of white lace with silver em- 
broidery, and her bonnet was richly wrought with jet and silver and 
trimmed with white acacia and white ostrich feathers. The Queen 
carried an untrimmed, unlined sunshade of pure white silk. 

At the foot of the stairway Her Majesty paused for a minute and 
touched an electric button connected with all the telegraph systems 
throughout the British Empire, and it flashed around the world the 
message : 

" From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them." 

The procession was practically in three sections as far as St. Paul's, 
though the two last en route to the Cathedral were consolidated as they 
moved into Piccadilly. The first to take up position was the Colonial 
procession, formed on the Embankment and moved via the Mall, thence 
past the Palace, where Her Majesty viewed it from a window, over the 





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VICTORIA. 131 

route to St. J^aul's. The march began at 8.45 and the great cortege 
proved a welcome relief to the waiting multitude. For the glories 
wer& Mdng pictures, presenting in tangible shape the growth of em- 
pire, the far-reaching extent of the Queen's sway. The procession, 
after some police, was headed by an advance party of the Royal Horse 
Guards. Then followed the band of the same corps playing the in- 
spiriting "Washington Post March." 

Then came the Northwest mounted police, the Victorian mounted 
troops, the Cape of Good Hope mounted rifles, the various colonial 
contingents. 

The second procession passed the palace fifty minutes after the 
Colonials had climbed Constitution Hill. Formed in Eaton square and 
Sloane street, it more than eloquently filled up the picture of Britain's 
war strength ; more than magnificently completed the carnival of 
gorgeous costume and color. 

The royal procession proper was formed, as regards its military 
portion, in front of the Knightsbridge Barracks, Hyde Park, and 
marched round by Belgrave Square to the Palace, where it took up 
position at ten minutes to eleven and was interwoven with the crowd 
of waiting dignitaries of all sorts. When ready, it moved to join the 
rear of the military procession. First came the aides-de-camp to the 
Queen, these being apart from the Prince of Wales and the Dukes of 
Cambridge and Connaught, and consisted of a score or more of the 
nobility and members of the army. 

Then followed alone the Lord Lieutenant of London, his Grace the 
Duke of Westminster, K. G., in a lord lieutenant's dress. The Duke 
was followed by a glittering cavalcade of officers, the headquarters 
staff. 

Next came three officers of the auxiliary forces in attendance on the 
Prince of Wales, equerries, gentlemen-in-waiting and military attaches, 
foreign naval and military attaches, a brilliant lot of gentlemen with a 
glittering array of titles, uniformed in the dresses of all the Courts of 
Europe, and half its crack regiments, and wearing all its stars. Then, 
a compliment from the Kaiser, a deputation from the First Prussian 
Dragoon Guards, "Queen of Great Britain and Ireland's Own," 
splendid looking men, quite able to live up to the Kaiser's reputation 
for turning out fine soldiers. 

A cheer broke forth that seemed to shake the ground, renewed 
again and again as her Majesty's carriage approached. The famous 
eight Hanoverian creams — cream in color with long tails, white, cold, 
almost fish-like eyes and pink noses, their manes richly woven with 



132 VICTORIA. 

ribbons of royal blue — were now passing. Gorgeous they looked in 
their new state harness-saddle cloths of royal blue velvet with rich 
fringes of bullion, the leather work red Morocco above and blue Mo- 
rocco beneath, glittering everywhere with the Royal arms, the lion, the 
unicorn, the crown in gold, literally the harness of pomp and color and 
brightness, just such an effect as the heroic knights of Elizabeth's time 
made in their panoply. The liveries of the postilions were in keeping 
with the harness, and had cost $5600 a piece — the scarlet and gold coats, 
white trousers and riding boots. For once since the Prince Consort's 
death the Queen permitted the mourning band to be removed from the 
men's arms — there was no note of sorrow. 

On the left of her Majesty rode the Duke of Cambridge, on the 
right the Prince of Wales, who was followed by the Duke of Con- 
naught, the general officer commanding. 

The great bells of St. Paul's broke out in happy chorus as the 
Queen's carriage started from Temple Bar, and only ceased as Her Ma- 
jesty's carriage stopped in front of the steps of the City Cathedral. 
As the Queen's procession arrived the carriages containing the Envoys 
and the Princesses drew up en echelon on the ordinary roadway on the 
right as you face the Cathedral. The escort of thirty Princes turned 
to the left on reaching the churchyard and then to the right across the 
front of the edifice, drawn up in open order between the statue to 
Queen Ann and the Cathedral steps. Her Majesty's carriage then 
came between, halting opposite the platform on which awaiting her 
were the Archbishop of Canterbuiy, the Lord Bishop of London, the 
Bishops of Marlborough and Stepnej', the Very Rev. Dean Gregory 
and the clergy of St. Paul's. In the surrounding dignitaries were 
leading representatives of all the faiths of England, including, of 
course, Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, the 
Chief Rabbi of the Jews and many others; Monsignor Antonius, 
Archbishop of Viborg and Finland, one of the most distinguished prel- 
ates of the Greek Church, sent by the Czar, and accompanied b} r a 
deacon and a full choir of singers, representing the Russian Church. 
Archbishop Machray was present for the Anglican Church of the Do- 
minion. 

The ecclesiastics, who had issued from the great west door as the 
Queen approached, standing beside the improvised altar, now began 
the simple service. A Te Deum, by Dr. Martin, organist of St Paul's, 
composed for the occasion, was sung. It was a most impressive work. 
The bass solo was sung chorally in unison by a large number of bassos, 



VICTORIA. 133 

and the accompaniment was furnished by the military orchestra com- 
posed of the bands of the Royal Artillery and Kneller Hall. 

As the sonorous "Amen " died away the sweet voices of the Cathe- 
dral clergy were heard chanting, " O Lord, Save the Queen," to which 
the great choir, in a wondrous volume of harmonious sound, responded, 
" And mercifully hear us when we call upon Thee." The Bishop of 
London, in full canonicals, then read a short collect, after which, as 
Her Majesty sat with bowed head, the Archbishop of Canterbury pro- 
nounced the benediction. 

After remaining for a time in prayer the Queen surveyed the plat- 
form through a lorgnette. During the ceremony she held her sun- 
shade over her head. 

The " aniens " in the service were accompanied by the blast of horns 
and the roll of drums, and when they were ended the Archbishop of 
Canterbury called for " Three times three cheers for Queen Victoria." 
All present rose and gave nine cheers for Her majesty, wildly waving 
their hats and handkerchiefs, the Queen bowing repeatedly. As the 
procession was being re-formed, the Queen called the Archbishops of 
Canterbury and York and the Bishop of London to her carriage and 
thanked them. Her Majesty also talked animatedly with the Prince 
of Wales and the Duke of Connaught. 

Then amidst the further ringing of bells the national anthem was 
sung, and the booming of the Tower guns firing a royal salute could 
be heard as the Queen drove on to other scenes. 

On Thursday, occurred the Princess of Wales' Jubilee dinners to the 
poor, which Her Royal Highness had planned long before, and in which 
she had been helped by popular subscription. 

About three hundred thousand denizens of the slums were sumptu- 
ously entertained at the various centres. The Princess, accompanied 
by the Prince of Wales, Princess Victoria of Wales and Prince and 
Princess Charles of Denmark, visited the principal halls where the 
fetes were given. 

The places visited by the royal party were the People's Palace, in 
the East End of London ; the Central Hall, Holborn, and the Wes- 
leyan Schoolhouse, at Clerkenwell. At the People's Palace the Royal 
visitors were received by the Lord Mayor, Sir George Fau del-Philips, 
and the Lady Mayoress. The guests there consisted of a thousand 
ragged children, all cripples. They were wheeled in bath chairs, limped 
on crutches into the banquet hall or were carried in. 

As soon as the Royal party reached the platform two little cripples 
presented bouquets of flowers to the Princess of Wales and to the Lady 



134 VICTORIA. 

Mayoress. The scene was an affecting one, and nearly all eyes became 
moist at sight of so many little sufferers. 

The Prince of Wales, in behalf of the Princess, expressed the pleas- 
ure which it afforded them in being able to bring some degree of happi- 
ness to the children. He called for cheers for the Queen, which were 
heartily given. 

The Lords of the Admiralty and all the Admirals of the foreign 
ships who were to take part in the naval review off Spithead on Satur- 
day next, including Rear Admiral Miller, U. S. N., were received by 
Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle on this day. 

Windsor Castle was brilliantly illuminated in the evening. 

On behalf of Her Majesty the Prince and Princess of Wales gave a 
reception at Buckingham Palace. The occasion was one of unprece- 
dented brilliancy, the guests numbering over sixteen hundred, and in- 
cluding all the special Jubilee visitors and the Admirals, Captains and 
officers from Spithead. 

An enormous crowd watched the arrivals at the palace, while the 
streets converging there were filled with carriages. 

The ballroom scene was one of dazzling splendor. The guests 
promenaded through the gorgeous saloons of the palace, while the 
bands played dance music. 

On Friday, the 25th, the Queen drove to Windsor Park and visited 
six thousand school children, who were celebrating Her Majesty's 
Jubilee. 

Later the Queen received delegations from fire brigades belonging to 
all parts of the kingdom. 

The Queen seemed in excellent health and spirits, and smilingly con- 
versed with those around her, evidently much pleased at the children's 
gathering. Each child wore a commemorative medal, and finally all 
joined in singing the national anthem. 

The firemen's parade was one of the largest ever held in England. 
There were twelve hundred men in line and one hundred engines. 
The Duke of Marlborough, as President of the National Fire Brigade, 
presented the officers to the Queen. 

While the Queen and the Empress Frederick were dining in the even- 
ing one thousand Eton boys, with bands of music, entered the quad- 
rangle of the castle and gave an exhibition of torchlight evolutions and 
fireworks. The charming spectacle was watched by the Queen and 
the members of the Royal household from the castle windows. 

The Lord Mayor of London entertained at luncheon all the Princes 
and Ambassadors who had taken part in the fetes. In the evening a 



VICTORIA. 135 

banquet was given by the Marquis of Lansdown and a ball by the Duke 
of Westminster, both of which were very brilliant. 

On Saturday, the seventh day of the Diamond Jubilee there was the 
Naval Review, the most magnificent array of battle ships ever gathered 
together in one place. 

The fleet was drawn up in seven lines on the south of the Solent, the 
head of the lines being off Brading, thence stretching westward almost 
to Cowes. The total array of armed vessels was one hundred and 
sixty-six, manned by forty-five thousand men and moored in lines of 
five miles each. The foreign war ships formed the sixth line. The 
honorary admiral of the fleet, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, 
reviewed on behalf of the sovereign the ships gathered in her honor. 

The Prince of Wales, accompanied by Admiral H. R. H. the Duke 
of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Captain H. R. H. the Duke of York, 
the Princess of Wales and other royalties, with their suites, arrived at 
Portsmouth at one o'clock. 

The guests included ex-Empress Frederick of Germany, the Duke of 
Connaught, the Duchess of Albany and her children, Prince Christian 
of Schleswig-Holstein, the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Grand 
Duke Sergius of Russia, Prince Charles of Denmark, in a naval uni- 
form ; Prince Albrecht of Prussia, the Crown Prince of Naples, 
Grand Duke Francis Ferdinand of Austria, Prince Henry of Prussia, 
Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse, Prince Rupert of Bavaria, Prince 
Mohammed Ali Khan of Egypt; Prince Arasugawa of Japan; Prince 
Danillo of Montenegro ; Grand Duke Cyril of Russia, Prince Frederick 
of Saxony, Prince Eugene of Sweden and Norway, Prince Albert of 
Wiirttemburg, the Duke of Fife, Prince Waldemar of Denmark, Prince 
Albert of Schleswig-Holstein, Prince Victor of Schleswig-Holstein, 
Prince Schomburg-Lippe, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, 
Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Prince 
Hohenlohe-Langenburg, the Grand Duke of Luxemburg, and a large 
number of other princes, and other titled personages. 

The party immediately proceeded on board the royal yacht Victoria 
and Albert, in which forty-one years ago Her Majesty inspected the 
fleet, whereupon Her Royal Highness' standard was hoisted. 

The Prince of Wales, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the Duke 
of Cambridge and all the admirals were in uniform, and the Princess 
of Wales, Princess Victoria of Wales and Princess Charles of Denmark, 
her daughters, wore white flannel yachting dresses and white straw 
hats. 

After lunching on board, at half-past two, the Victoria and Albert, 
9 



136 VICTORIA. 

with the principal royalties, left the harbor for Spithead. She was fol- 
lowed by the yacht Irene, the Pando, the Carthage, and the Elfin, an 
Admiralty yacht, these vessels carrying the distinguished foreign visi- 
tors. Then came the Enchantress, an Admiralty yacht, with the Hon. 
George J. Goschen, First Lord of the Admiralty, and after her the Ad- 
miralty's yacht Wildfire, with Mr. Chamberlain, the Secretary of State 
for the Colonies, and the Colonial Premiers. She was followed by the 
Eldorado, carrying the Ambassadors and Special Envoys, including 
Mr. Whitelaw Reid. Then came the Danube, with the members of the 
House of Lords; the Campania, with the members of the House of 
Commons, and the Fire-Queen, the yacht of the Commander-in-Chief 
at Portsmouth. 

As the Albert and Victoria was seen approaching, the fleet, led by 
the Renown and echoed by the foreign vessels present, fired a deafening 
royal salute of twenty-one guns. Simultaneously the blue-jackets and 
marines "manned ship," standing on the ironclads in solid lines round 
their outer edges and filling their tops, while on vessels of the older 
type the yards were quickly dotted. 

It was very theatrical and interesting. The Victoria and Albert, 
followed by the other yachts, then steamed through the lines, the sailors 
cheering heartily and the bands playing "God Save the Queen." 

The Victoria and Albert afterward anchored between the Renown 
and the foreign war vessels. Immediately the steam launches of the 
foreign commanders left the sides of their big ships and made for the 
Victoria and Albert, on the quarter deck of which the commanding 
officers were received by the Prince of Wales. 

This ended the review. 

The royal yachts then returned to Portsmouth. 

After dinner His Royal Highness and guests went out again to the 
fleet to witness the illumination of the ships in the evening. 

On Monday, the 28th, Her Majesty returned to London, her final 
jubilee day but one, and her last jubilee appearance in the metropolis, 
for with the celebration that closed at Aldershot on the following 
Thursday, the state appearance of the Queen ended, all the official 
functions, drawing-rooms and public ceremonies which would bring 
the Sovereign face to face with her people, being relegated to the 
Prince and Princess of Wales. 

Monday's celebration was fittingly begun at Kensington, where fifty- 
nine years ago she was crowned, and the visit to the old home was one 
of mingled pleasure and sadness. 

Her Majesty arrived at Paddington at 12.35 P. M. She was in the 



VICTORIA. 137 

best of health, and walked with less difficulty than usual. The Grand 
Duke and Grand Duchess Sergius, of Russia, and Princess Beatrice of 
Battenberg occupied seats in Her Majesty's carriage. 

The same ceremonies of semi-state progression were observed as on 
her arrival a week ago, a commanding officer's escort of the life guards 
being in attendance. The route was by the Bayswater road to Church 
street, and via the Mall to Kensington. Such portion of the route as 
had not already been decorated was furnished forth in the draperies, 
flags, mottoes and festoons made so familiar last week in other parts of 
London. 

Proceeding along Church street to St. Mary Abbotts, a halt was made 
to receive an address from the inhabitants of her birthplace. 

Ten thousand children belonging to the elementary schools of Kens- 
ington, massed behind the railings of Kensington Gardens, sang the 
national anthem while the Queen was passing. 

After receiving the address the procession resumed the route to Buck- 
ingham Palace via High street, Queen's Gate, Kensington Gardens, 
past the Albert memorial to Hyde Park corner, thence to the palace. 

Throughout the entire distance there were dense crowds of spectators 
who cheered Her Majesty with that astounding vigor to which last week 
had somewhat accustomed one. The Queen looked immensely grati- 
fied, smiling and bowing her acknowledgments. 

The scene at St. Mary Abbotts, where the Queen was born, was ex- 
ceedingly brilliant, the neighborhood being lavishly decorated. The 
Marquis and Marchioness of Lome were included in the members of 
the Reception Committee. The guards of honor furnished by the 
Middlesex volunteers presented arms, and the band pla}^ed the national 
anthem on the arrival of Her Majesty. So soon as the Queen's car- 
riage reached the porch the Marquis and Marchioness of Lome ap- 
proached and greeted Her Majesty, after which the Chairman of the 
vestry presented the address, which was contained in a morocco case. 

Her Majesty handed back a written reply to the address, thanking 
the signers for their loyal and kind expressions, and adding: 

" I gladly renew my association with a place which, as the scene of 
my birth and summons to the throne, has ever had and will have with 
me solemn and tender recollections." 

Across the gates of Kensington Palace was a banner on which was 
inscribed " Home, Sweet Home." 

Her Majesty saw it and seemed much affected. 

Her Majesty reached Buckingham Palace at 1.30 P. M. and about 
five o'clock entered the grounds to be present at the garden party, for 



138 VICTORIA. 

which six thousand invitations had been issued. Her Majesty was re- 
ceived with almost reverential greetings and took up her position, to 
which she was wheeled from the palace door, in front of a small tent 
near the lake. The gardens were beautifully arranged. The Queen's 
watermen were in boats on the lake, the fountains were all playing, re- 
freshment marquees had been erected at convenient spots, and three 
bands of music were in attendance. The Queen received many of her 
guests in her tent and there took leave of the special envoys of the 
foreign powers to the Jubilee ceremonies and their suites. The Queen 
returned to Windsor at seven o'clock. She had witnessed and been 
the object of a scene never surpassed in material magnificence and 
moral significance since the creation of the British Empire. 

The result had been beyond expectation. It was natural that the 
Jubilee should be remarkable, but few had realized how great would be 
the strength of the popular feeling. 

The unexampled devotion to her obligations to her people after sixty 
years had well won her a rest, and in so far as a sovereign could, she 
now proposed to let the burden of responsibility fall on those who 
must bear it when she passes away. 

Says Smalley in comparing Elizabeth and Victoria, "It will prob- 
ably always be thought that the great work of these sixty years has 
been what Mr. Gladstone calls a work of emancipation — a work partly 
of political liberation, partly of social amelioration. Into the details 
of either I have no space to enter, even in the briefest way. But it is 
a work which has tended to the welfare of the state in so far as it has 
improved the condition of the people who compose the state. 

"It ought, therefore, to have made the people more contented, more 
loyal, more devoted to the form of government under which they live 
— more loyal, better Englishmen. The naval and military power of 
England has, at any rate, grown with her growth, so that the Queen 
will have it to say when she departs that she leaves her kingdom 
stronger than she found it, and that there is no single enemy whom 
England does not overmatch, nor any two whom she need fear com- 
bined. Her own share in this steady increase of naval power has not 
been slight, but, whatever may have been her share, the worldwide su- 
premacy of England on sea is part of the gloiy of her reign. 

"Elizabeth was succeeded by James — a king who squandered the 
prestige she had won. The present Prince of Wales is certainly no 
James, no pedant or driveller, but neither has he had that training in 
statesmanship which his mother has had all through her long life. He 
will inherit the crown : he cannot inherit that accumulated experience 



VICTORIA. 139 

and ripe wisdom which the Queen, with her sixty years of contact with 
great affairs, possesses in unequalled degree. He has the constitutional 
and personal traditions of her reign ; he has natural abilities, which he 
may turn to high account. Should the Prince prefer to take a lesser 
part than the Queen's in the business of state, there will be none the 
less statesmen and soldiers, Parliament and people, to guard the great 
heritage which the Queen will transmit — a heritage which she has pre- 
served and augmented. The England of Elizabeth was a far nobler 
power in the world at the end of her reign than at the beginning, and 
meantime had done an immense work of civilization. The same may 
be said of the England of Victoria, and neither of the two great 
Queens need care for a better epitaph." 






SEMIRAMIS 



SEMIRAMIS. 



At a period which the researches of historians have failed 
to determine, an Assyrian king, whose very name is a matter 
of doubt, and the site of whose capital city has long since 
been lost, leading an army whose numbers cannot with any 
certainty be fixed, into a territory whose location it would be 
impossible to indicate, to avenge an insult the nature of which 
history has not recorded, laid siege to the stronghold of the 
country. Prodigies of valor were achieved on either side, but 
the beleaguered city proved so fertile in resources that the 
blockade languished, and the operations of the Assyrians were 
for a time suspended. At this juncture, the fortunes of the king 
or the chances of war brought to the camp a woman, whose 
birth had been the subject of fable, whose arrival amid the riot 
of battle can only be explained by complaisant legend, and 
whose subsequent history — indeed, whose very existence — is 
regarded by the prudent commentators of our times with con- 
stantly augmenting distrust. The reader is thus duly forewarned 
that, in the following sketch of Ninus and Semiramis, we appeal 
exclusively to the fabulists, convinced as we are that, did we 
rely upon the antiquarians, or accept only what is deemed au- 
thentic in their history, we should leave the frontispiece to this 

141 



142 , SEMIRAMIS. 

sketch without illustrative text, or perhaps, indeed, should have 

had no frontispiece at all. 

In the year 1240, b. c, or thereabouts, a goddess worshipped 

in Syria under the name of Derceto, and widely respected foi 
her chastity, had the misfortune to displease that most irritable 
divinity, Venus, who straightway resolved on vengeance. The 
catalogue of ways and means in her possession seems to have 
been, in every system of mythology, exceedingly limited • and it 
is not surprising to find the Assyrian Yenus resorting, in the 
poverty of her resources, to the universal and infallible passion 
— Love ; thus setting the example to which the Yenus of Paphos 
afterwards so consistently adhered. Derceto loved, and not 
wisely : she gave birth to a female infant, which she abandoned 
upon the deserts of Ascalon ; then, obeying an impulse which 
seems to have been usual in these., guilty legendary mothers, she 
slew her betrayer, and threw herself headlong into a lake. The 
eternal fitness of things is beautifully consulted in the disposition 
made of her by the fable — she was changed, either by assimila- 
tion or metempsychosis, into a fish. Now, fish are cold-blooded, 
as every one knows, and being oviparous, leave their young to 
take care of themselves. The legend, having thus given to the 
parent an integument consistent with her nature, returns to the 
deserted babe. 

No little invention has been shown by the mythologists 
in what may be called the ward or department of abandoned 
infants. The Foundling Hospital of antiquity and the classics is 
an extensive institution, and its annals are distinguished by an 
agreeable variety. Without once trespassing upon the precincts 
of Sacred History, without an attempt to imitate or to repeat the 
beautiful narrative of the osier basket among the bulrushes, its 
managers depend solely upon their own resources, which are, 
indeed, sufficiently abundant. For the founder of Rome, they 
invented the she-wolf of the Tiber ; they delivered Jason, whom 
his parents, through fear of a usurping brother, dared not keep 



SEMIRAMIS 143 

at home, to the centaur Chiron ; Bacchus, prematurely born of a 
dead mother, they stitched tightly up in the thigh of Jupiter ; 
they gave JEneas for five years to the nurture of the dryads of 
Mount Ida ; they hid the infant Jove, leaving him among the 
Melian nymphs to be suckled by a goat, and instructed the wild 
bees to deposit their honey on his lips. They caught the limping 
son of Juno, as his mother, shocked at his deformity, flung him 
from Olympus, and deputed the nymphs Eurydice and Thetis to 
cherish him in a cavern beneath the sea. Juno was nursed, dur- 
ing her tender years, in the grotto palace of Oceanus and Tethys. 
But long before these quaint and delicate fancies were invested 
by Homer and other poets with the fame which should give them 
immortality, jthe mythologists of Syria had made Semiramis the 
subject of a similar and as probable a legend. 

The infant daughter of Derceto was abandoned, as has been 
said, upon the desolate shores of the lake in which her mother 
had perished. She was befriended in her abandonment, not by 
wood nymphs or water sprites ; not by bees or goats ; but by 
doves. These gentle nurses fed and sheltered her from the 
storm. They pilfered milk from the royal dairies, and brought 
it to her in their beaks. They spread their wings over her at 
night, forming a quilt of dove plumage softer than coverlet of 
eider down. A year thus passed away. The child grew and 
prospered, but at last clamored for more substantial food. The 
doves, whose depredations had been undiscovered as long as 
they had been confined to the milk pails, were detected in their 
larcenies the moment they attacked the cheese ; they were 
tracked to the spot where the babbling orphan lay. The intend- 
ant of the flocks and herds of the king, Simmas by name, being 
without children of his own, adopted her, and made her his 
daughter and his heir. He gave her the name of Semiramis — a 
word which, in the Syrian tongue, expressed the tender relations 
which had subsisted between her and her friends of the dove-cot. 



144 SEMIRAMIS. 

It is humiliating, after having narrated this absorbing story, 
to be obliged to add, that it is believed to have been invented 
by Semiramis herself, in later years, to conceal the irregularity 
of her birth, and to convince her subjects, the Assyrians, of the 
interest with which the gods had watched over her early years. 
It is, at any rate, certain that doves were publicly worshipped 
by that people — an honor paid them, doubtless, in acknowledg- 
ment of the humanity and disinterested benevolence which they 
had displayed towards their queen. 

Semiramis attained her eighteenth year, her beauty and her 
accomplishments attracting many suitors for her hand. Menones, 
the governor of Syria, was the successful aspirant ; he conducted 
his lovely bride to Nineveh, where the marriage was celebrated. 
Their union was a happy one, and two sons, Hypates and Hy- 
daspes, soon came to bless it. Semiramis gave her husband 
much prudent advice in the administration of his governorship, 
and he was always ready to confess the benefit he derived from 
her sagacious counsels. At this juncture, in an evil hour for 
Menones, Kinus, the king, who had received a check in a late 
excursion against Bactriana, resolved to march upon the rebel- 
lious kingdom with an army of formidable proportions. He 
summoned all his officers and retainers to his assistance, Menones 
among the number. Ninus was at this time master of all the 
nations inhabiting Asia, with the exception of India and Bactri- 
ana — Syria, Phoenicia, Pamphylia, Lycia, Caria, Phrygia, Mysia, 
Lydia, Persia, Susiana. His capital, Nineveh, was the most 
remarkable city of antiquity. His resources must have been 
inexhaustible, to have enabled him to lead to battle such an 
army as took the field. His forces consisted of 1,700,000 infan- 
try, 200,000 horse, and 10,000 chariots, armed with scythes. 
With this enormous train he overran and subdued the country 
of his enemies, till he arrived before Bactria, their capital, 
having lost in various encounters the bagatelle of 100,000 men. 



SEMI RAM IS. 145 

The city held out with unlooked for courage, and Ninus de- 
spaired of reducing it. 

It so happened, that at this period Menones, desiring to 
beguile the tedium of the siege, had summoned Semiramis to 
the camp. Ambitious of fame, and tired of her inglorious life, 
she hastened to obey. She composed a travelling costume which 
might have suited a person of either sex, in which good taste, 
cleanliness and convenience were equally consulted, and in this 
ambiguous attire appeared before her husband. The siege was 
still languishing, and without prospect of a speedy termination. 
She went forth to reconnoitre the means of resistance employed 
by the Bactrians. She noticed that the citadel was negligently 
guarded, the troops stationed about it invariably leaving it 
unprotected when their assistance was required at other points 
of the line of defence. She resolved to attack the spot thus 
exposed, and on the occasion of an assault directed at a distant 
portion of the wall, she led a body of picked troops against the 
citadel. They penetrated into the city, and opened the gates to 
the besiegers. Bactria, with its immense treasures, thus fell into 
the hands of Ninus. The grateful king overwhelmed Semiramis 
with presents, and though ripe in years and experience, con- 
ceived an unconquerable passion for her. He sent for Menones, 
and offered him his daughter Sosana in exchange for his wife. 
Menones was highly scandalized, and refused to accede to the 
proposal. Ninus assured him that if he did not yield, he would 
have his eyes put out. Menones, convinced that nothing could 
save Semiramis from the king, and determined not to survive his 
dishonor, hung himself in despair. On his return to Nineveh, 
Ninus married the lovely widow, whose grief at the unfortunate 
end of her husband does not seem to have been of long duration. 
She bore him a son, who was called Ninyas. Her influence over 
her lord, now well-nigh in his dotage, may be imagined from 
the following incident : 

Having secured the cooperation of the principal officers of 



146 ' SEMIRAMIS. 

the kingdom, Semiramis besought Ninus to intrust her with 
the sovereign power for the space of five days. The uxorious 
monarch consented, and Semiramis, after a sufficient number 
of lesser experiments to prove the allegiance of her subjects, 
ordered the unfortunate Ninus to be beheaded. The command 
was executed with an alacrity which must have consoled the last 
moments of a king who had been an ardent stickler for discipline 
and unquestioning obedience. Semiramis seized the crown, and, 
encountering no opposition from the court or the people, reigned 
uninterruptedly upon the throne she had usurped. It is proper to 
add that, according to another version of Semiramis' accession to 
power, instead of murdering Mnus, she merely imprisoned him 
for life ; that, according to still another, she received the crown 
from Ninus, upon his expiring tranquilly in his bed ; and that, 
during the early years of her administration, she assumed the 
garments and bearing of her youthful son Ninyas, until, by a 
vigorous and sagacious use of her authority, she had reconciled 
the Assyrians to the domination of a woman. 

However this may be, and in whatever manner Semiramis 
attained the sovereign power, it would seem that she wielded 
it with marvellous energy, creating for herself a reputation 
unrivalled in antiquity. She applied all her thoughts to immor- 
talize her name and to surpass her predecessors in magnificence. 
She conceived the idea of building a city which should excel the 
peerless Nineveh, and in this view, undertook the construction, 
or, according to other authorities, merely the embellishment, 
of the mighty Babylon. This city, as Semiramis left it, was 
surrounded with walls eighty-seven feet thick and three hundred 
and fifty feet high ; they formed an exact square, each side being 
fifteen miles long. On the outside was a moat as deep as the 
walls were high, for it had furnished the clay of which the bricks 
were formed. There were one hundred gates of solid brass — the 
gates whose destruction by Cyrus was predicted by Isaiah. 
Numerous streets, intersecting each other at right angles, cut 



SEMI RAM IS. 147 

the city into six hundred and seventy-six squares, all of them 
ornamented by elegant buildings, by gardens and open cultivated 
spaces. 

An arm of the Euphrates ran across the city from the north to 
the south ; a quay bordered each bank, and a bridge, one-eighth 
of a mile in length, was skillfully thrown across it. That the 
river, swollen as it usually was in summer by the melting of the 
snows upon the mountains of Armenia, might not inundate 
its banks, two canals were dug at some distance above Babylon, 
by which the overflow was diverted into the Tigris. A reservoir 
was also formed by the sinking of a prodigious artificial lake, 
one hundred and sixty miles in compass, whose waters, collected 
in times of abundance, were let out by sluices to irrigate the land 
at seasons of drought. Into this lake the river was turned, 
till the bank and quays and bridge were completed. The time 
occupied by the laborers in these works could of course be no 
longer than that taken by the river to fill the lake, after 
which it would naturally burst its bonds and return to its former 
channel. It has been calculated that if the Euphrates were 
five hundred feet wide and ten deep, and flowed two miles 
an hour, it would fill the lake in three years, allowing no 
absorption to the sides ; but if absorption and evaporation were 
taken into the account, four years would probably be required — 
a period doubtless sufficient, when the number of hands employed 
is considered. Were the Babylonish lake to be now constructed 
in America, it would cost, according to the usual prices paid 
for public works, the incredible sum of twenty-one thousand 
millions of dollars. This comparison will either serve to show 
the immense superiority of the ancients to the moderns in all 
those elements which constitute national grandeur, or to con- 
vince the reader, with the historian Rollin, that ' ' there are some 
of the wonders of Babylon which are scarce to be compre- 
hended or believed, and that of this number is the lake." 

The temple of Belus was another of the marvels of Babylon, 



148 SEMIRAMIS. 

and was chiefly remarkable for a prodigious tower which stood 
in the middle of it. Its base was a square, each side being a 
furlong in length ; its height was also a furiong. It consisted of 
eight towers, built one upon the other, decreasing regularly 
to the top, whence it has been called a pyramid by several 
ancient authors. In height it far exceeded the most remarkable 
of the pyramids of Egypt. It is believed by respectable 
authorities to have been the tower mentioned in the Scriptures 
as the Tower of Babel, the presumptuous edifice which called 
down upon the human race the curse of the confusion of tongues. 
Upon the very summit was an observatory, by means of which 
the Babylonians attained the proficiency in astronomy which 
history ascribes to them. The chief use to which the building 
was put was the worship of Belus, the Assyrian Jupiter, and 
its wealth in statues, censers, cups and other sacred vessels — 
all of them of massive gold, and the spoil of conquered nations, 
was almost beyond calculation. An estimate made by Diodorus, 
however, places their value at six thousand three hundred 
Babylonish talents, or six hundred millions of dollars. 

Such were the principal works of art and ingenuity which 
rendered Babylon so famous in antiquity ; a portion of them are 
believed to have been due to Semiramis, though her share has 
not been satisfactorily separated from that of Ninus and of Nebu- 
chadnezzar. All historians unite, however, in ascribing to her the 
building of the walls — an effort which must always be regarded 
with amazement, if not with incredulity. 

When the works she had undertaken were completed, or 
sufficiently advanced, Semiramis resolved upon making a royal 
progress through her vast and constantly extending empire. She 
advanced into Media at the head of an imposing army. Here, in 
a romantic site, she laid out a garden whose extent was mea- 
sured by square miles, and left, hewn upon the rocks which 
diversified the scene, the bas-reliefs of herself and one hundred 
of her guards. At Chaones she remained long enough to build 



SEMIRAMIS. 149 

a palace and spend in it a season of riot and gross self-indul- 
ges ce. She continued her route into the territory of the Per- 
sians, leaving traces of her passage in the aqueducts which 
conveyed water to thirsty cities, in the highways which she laid 
across tracts before impassable, in the mountains which she 
tunnelled and the valleys which she filled. Not content with her 
dominions in Asia, she extended them by conquests in Ethiopia 
and Libya. While in the latter country, curiosity led her to 
visit the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, which she consulted upon the 
number of years she had yet to live. The oracle replied that 
she would die when her son Ninyas should secretly attempt her 
life, but that after death several nations of the east would pay 
divine honors to her memory. 

Whatever proportion of fable may be mingled with the 
history of Semiramis, it is the unanimous verdict of antiquity that 
the sway of the Assyrian queen extended over the whole of 
upper Asia. Statues, monuments, and inscriptions referring to 
her, cities either founded, built or improved by her, scattered 
over this wide expanse of territory, have proved to the inquirers 
of a later period, either that she had caused her supremacy to be 
acknowledged there, or that she had taken the very unusual step 
of embellishing kingdoms not her own. An inscription in which 
the princess chronicles - her own exploits has been preserved by 
Polyaenus : 

" Nature gave me the form of a woman ; my actions have 
raised me to the level of the most valiant of men. I have 
swayed the empire of Ninus, which, towards the east, touches the 
river Inamanes ; upon the south, the land of incense and myrrh ; 
and upon the north, the territory of the Sogdians. Before me, no 
Assyrian ever saw the sea ; I have seen four whose waters were 
not navigated, and I have subdued them to my laws. I have 
constrained rivers to flow in the directions which I wished ; and 
I never wished them to flow where they would not be useful. I 
have rendered sterile lands fruitful by irrigation. I have built 



150 SEMIRAMIS. 

impregnable fortresses, and I have thrown roads across impracti- 
cable mountains. I have paved with my silver highways where 
before were the footprints of wild beasts ; and in the midst of my 
labors, I have found time for my own diversion and for that of 
my friends." 

While reigning in uninterrupted tranquillity, Semiramis heard 
that a nation which lived beyond the river Indus, and which 
derived its name from that stream, claimed to be the greatest 
people in the world, and that they dwelt in a fertile country, 
beneath a benignant sky. She resolved to make war upon a 
race thus presumptuous in their boasts and thus fortunate in 
their lot. She spent three years in preparation for the conflict, 
and finally took the field at the head of the largest army ever 
yet assembled. It consisted of three millions of infantry, five 
hundred thousand cavalry, one hundred thousand chariots, and 
an immense number of portable boats in which to cross the 
Indus. Aware that the great strength of Stabrobates, the Indian 
monarch, lay in his elephants, she caused three hundred thousand 
cows and oxen to be killed, and their skins to be dressed and 
colored to resemble elephants 7 hides. With these she made a 
large number of false elephants, the motive power of each being 
furnished by a camel. One hundred thousand men, armed with 
spears six feet long, were attached to this wing of the service. 
The Indian king having received notice of her approach, gathered 
an army even more numerous than that of the invaders, and sent 
word to the queen that she would soon have cause to repent an 
aggression as unwise as it was unjust. She launched her fleet of 
canoes upon the waters of the Indus, and attempted to reach the 
opposite bank. Battle was joined in the middle of the stream ; 
the issue was for a long time doubtful, but the Indians were 
finally repulsed, and fled, leavirg one hundred thousand pri- 
soners in the hands of Semiramis. Encouraged by this success, 
and having transported her entire army across the river by 
means of her boats, which she had formed into a bridge, she 



SEMIRAMIS. 151 

advanced into the heart of the enemy's territory. She disco- 
vered, too late, that the flight of Stabrobates had been designed 
expressly to decoy her within his power, for he now faced abont, 
and a sanguinary engagement of the entire forces of both armies 
ensued. The real elephants were at first appalled at the uncouth 
and clumsy imitations which met them in the charge : and the 
Indian soldiers, accustomed to the balmy odors with which their 
spicy harvests filled the air, were almost incapacitated from 
fighting by the horrible smell of the hides in which the enemy's 
camels were incased. But both they and the elephants soon reco- 
vered, and the forces of Semiramis gave way before the com- 
bined attack. The Assyrian queen sought to rally her troops, 
but a panic had seized them, and they commenced a disorderly 
retreat towards the river. She was twice wounded by the hand 
of Stabrobates, and was only saved from capture by the swiftness 
of her horse. In the confusion attendant upon the re-passage of 
the Indus, large numbers of her men perished, and she regained 
her own dominions with hardly one -third of the army she had 
taken to the field. 

As she approached her capital, she learned that her son 
Ninyas was plotting her destruction, and that one of her princi- 
pal officers was lying in wait for her. She called to mind the 
response of the oracle of Jupiter Amnion, and, with a resignation 
unusual upon the throne, resolved to obey the implied injunc- 
tion. Though she caused the treacherous officer to be taken into 
custody, she forbore inflicting punishment upon him, and after 
voluntarily abdicating the crown, and putting the supreme 
authority into the hands of her son, she withdrew from the sight 
of men. She is even said to have been changed into a dove, 
and to have been last seen when on the wing. Notwithstanding 
this metamorphosis, which would seem to preclude the possibility 
of sepulture, respectable authorities attribute to her a tomb, and 
even record a very peculiar inscription which they allege was 
placed upon it. This consisted of two distinct epigraphs, the 

10 



152 SEMIKAMIS. 

one contradicting and annulling the other : the first informed 
her royal successors that, in case of need, they would find large 
stores of precious metals within her tomb ; the second embodied 
a fierce imprecation upon the perverse and avaricious king who 
should violate the sanctuary of the dead. 

Semiramis died or disappeared in her sixty-second year, after 
a glorious and useful reign of forty years. She has been pro- 
nounced the best political economist of antiquity, and the first 
utilitarian queen. The reader may safely reject the greater 
portion of her history, such as it has been handed down to us ; 
and he may even divide among several sovereigns bearing the 
name of Semiramis, the merit of the achievements which the 
chronicles usually attribute to her alone ; there will still remain 
sufficient ground for admiration and respect for one or all of her 
line and lineage. The example of Semiramis is believed to have 
induced Plato to maintain, in his Commonwealth, that women, 
as well as men, should be admitted to the management of public 
affairs ; that they should be trained to perform the same bodily 
exercises, and to undergo the same mental fatigue. But Aris- 
totle and Xenophon, and, many centuries later, the French 
historian Rollin, surprised to find a philosopher so judicious in 
other respects, openly combating the most natural maxims of 
modesty, and insisting so strongly upon a principle at variance 
with the usual practice of mankind, "have, with great judgment, 
marked out the different ends to which man and woman are 
ordained, from the different qualities of body and mind where- 
with they are endowed by the Author of Nature, who has given 
the one strength of body and intrepidity of mind, to enable him 
to undergo the greatest hardships and face the most imminent 
dangers ; whilst the other, on the contrary, is of a weak and 
delicate constitution, accompanied with a natural softness and 
modest timidity, which render her more fit for a sedentary life, 
and dispose her to keep within the precincts of the house, and 
to employ herself in the concerns of prudent and industrious 



SEMIRAMIS. 153 

economy. This allotment, far from degrading or lessening the 
woman, is really for her advantage and honor, in confiding to 
her a kind of domestic empire and government, administered 
only by gentleness, reason, equity and good nature ; and in 
giving her frequent occasions of concealing the most valuable 
and excellent qualities under the inestimable veil of modesty and 
submission." 

We have nothing to add to these sage reflections. We may 
with propriety mention, however, in regard to the sources from 
whence we have drawn the details herein collected, that we do 
not expect again to be compelled to appeal so unreservedly to 
the traditions and legends of any period of which we may be 
treating ; and we hope, as our chronological sequence progresses, 
to arrive, in due time, at that epoch in history, when we may 
present a record of attested facts in place of an array of mar- 
vellous puerilities. 



PENELOPE. 



This most interesting of the semi-historical heroines of anti- 
quity was born, we may reasonably suppose, some twenty years 
previous to the Trojan War : the date could not have been far, 
therefore, from 1214 B.C. She was the daughter of Icarius and 
Polycaste, and niece of Tyndarus, king of Sparta. Her name is 
said to have been originally Arnsea, and to have been changed 
to Penelope in commemoration of the skill and patience which 
she afterwards displayed in the art of spinning. Ulysses, son of 
the king of Ithaca, was at first a suitor for the hand of Helen, 
Tyndarus' daughter and Penelope's cousin, but, disheartened 
by the great number of his competitors, he solicited the hand of 
Penelope ; his addresses being encouraged by her father, he 
married her and returned with her to Ithaca. The aged king 
resigned his crown to his son, and retired to a life of rural 
solitude ; Ulysses and Penelope lived for a time happily in 
their island kingdom, reigning in peace over their subjects, 
and rearing their son Telemachus. 

In the meantime, Helen had married Menelatis, who, upon 

the death of Tyndarus, succeeded to the throne of Sparta. 

Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy, now paid his memorable 

visit to Sparta, requiting the hospitality of his host by abducting 

i54 



-*-*•— ™~— ■ 





PENELDFE, 



PENELOPE. 155 

his wife — an act which, reprehensible as it was, we may, at this 
late day, safely omit stigmatizing, inasmuch as without it we 
should have lost the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the iEneid. All who 
had ever addressed their court to Helen, had bound themselves 
by oath to unite to protect her, should violence be offered to 
her person. Ulysses was, therefore, summoned by Menelaiis 
and his brother, Agamemnon, to join the forces collecting for 
the chastisement of Paris and the destruction of Troy. He was 
loath to quit his beloved Penelope, and to avoid the necessity, 
resorted to stratagem. He counterfeited insanity, and, yoking 
together a horse and a bull, ploughed the sea-shore and sowed 
salt in the furrows. Palamedes, the envoy from Menelaiis, sus- 
pected the artifice and resolved to expose it. He placed the 
infant Telemachus in the path of the ill-matched team : Ulysses, 
in whom the father predominated over the masquerader, turned 
them aside from the furrow, leaving the boy unhurt. Thus de- 
tected, he was compelled to depart for the wars. He after- 
wards revenged himself upon the officious Palamedes by forging 
a letter of thanks from Priam, by which the Greeks were led 
to believe that he had furnished supplies to the Trojans ; for 
this imputed offence he was stoned to death by his indignant 
countrymen. 

Ulysses accompanied the Greeks to Ilium, and remained 
during the siege of Troy — ten years according to the time-tables 
of history, many more in the computation of the desolate Pene- 
lope. Upon the fall of the city, he was involved in the disasters 
which the vengeance of Minerva heaped upon the Grecian ships, 
and for ten years more wandered from country to country, 
exposed to constant peril and unable to regain his home. From 
time to time, an episode of a gratifying nature compensated for 
the trials he underwent : Calypso certainly atoned for Polyphe- 
mus, and Circe, after her spell was broken, was a fair equivalent 
for Scylla and Charybdis. It is the prudence, dignity and fidelity 
of Penelope, during these twenty years of separation, that have 



156 PENELOPE. 

made her the heroine of poets, the envy of husbands, the dream 
and the toast of bachelors. 

During the latter years of the absence of Ulysses, his palace 
at Ithaca was thronged with princes and peers, importunate and 
quarrelsome suitors for the hand of the queen, who, they main- 
tained, had long since been made a widow by battle or ship- 
wreck. Her friends and family urged her to abandon the idea 
of her husband's return, and to choose from among the rival 
aspirants a father for Telemachus and a sovereign for Ithaca. 
She exerted all her ingenuity, and put in practice every artifice 
which she could invent, to defer the period of her final decision. 
In the seventeenth year of her solitude, she imagined the device 
which is so indissolubly connected with her name, engaging to 
make a choice when she should have completed a web which she 
was then weaving as a funeral ornament for Laertes, Ulysses' 
father, now rapidly sinking to the grave. The suitors gladly 
accepted a proposal which seemed to promise a speedy termina- 
tion to their woes. But Penelope, assiduously unravelling at 
night what she had woven during the day, protracted for three 
years more the fatal moment. At the beginning of the fourth, 
a female attendant disclosed the pious treachery. These inci- 
dents are related by Homer in a speech placed in the mouth of 
Antinous, the most turbulent of the suitors. Telemachus had 
reproached them with riotous conduct, alleging that their prodi- 
gality had well-nigh drained the royal coffers. Antinous thus 
replied : 

" insolence of youth I whose tongue affords 
Such railing eloquence and war of words ; 
Studious thy country's worthies to defame, 
Thy erring voice proclaims thy mother's shame. 
Elusive of the hridal day, she gives 
Fond hope to all, and all with hopes deceives. 
Did not the sun, through heaven's wide azure rolTd, 
For three long years the royal fraud hehold ? 
While she, laborious in delusion, spread 



PENELOPE. 157 

The spacious loom and mixed the various thread . 

"When, as to life, the wondrous figures rise, 

Thus spoke th' inventive queen, with artful sighs : 

* Though cold in death Ulysses breathes no more, 

* Oease yet awhile to urge the bridal hour ; 
4 Cease till to great Laertes I bequeath 

4 A task of grief, his ornaments of death. 
4 Lest when the Fates his royal ashes claim, 
4 The Grecian matrons taint my spotless fame ; 
4 When he whom, living, mighty realms obeyed, 
4 Shall want, in death, a shroud to grace his shade. 1 
Thus she : at once the generous train complies, 
Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue's fair disguise. 
The work she plied, but studious of delay, 
By night reversed the labors of the day. 
While thrice the sun his annual journey made, 
The conscious lamp the midnight fraud survey'd. 
Unheard, unseen, three years her arts prevail, 
The fourth, her maid unfolds th' amazing tale. 
We saw, as unperceiv'd we took our stand, 
The backward labors of her faithless hand. 
Then urg'd, she perfects her illustrious toils, 
A wondrous monument of female wiles 1" 



In Ovid's " Epistles of the Heroines," is a letter from Pene- 
lope to Ulysses, in which, ignorant of the causes of his delay, she 
chides him for his prolonged absence, and with persuasive elo- 
quence entreats him to return : 

"Ulysses, thy Penelope sends this to thee, thus delaying. 
But write me nothing in answer : do thou come thyself. Troy, 
so hateful to the Grecian fair, doubtless lies prostrate ; hardly 
was Priam, and the whole of Troy, of such great importance. 
Oh ! how I wish that at the time when he was making for Lace- 
daemon with his fleet, the adulterer had been overwhelmed in 
the raging waves ! Then I had not lain cold in a deserted bed, 
nor, forlorn, should I have complained that the days pass slowly 
on : the hanging web would not have wearied my widowed 
hands, as I seek to beguile the lingering night. 

" When have I not been dreading dangers more grievous 



158 PENELOPE. 

than the reality ? Love is a thing replete with anxious fears. 
Against thee did I fancy that the furious Trojans were rushing 

on ; at the name of Hector I was always pale But the 

righteous god had a regard for my chaste passion ; Troy has 
been reduced to ashes, and my husband survives. The Argive 
chieftains have returned ; the altars are smoking ; the spoils of 
the barbarians are offered to the gods of our country. The 
damsels newly married are presenting the gifts of gratitude for 
the safe return of their husbands ; the latter are celebrating 
the destinies of Troy overcome by their own. 

" But what avails me Ilion hurled down by thy arms, and 
that level ground which once was walls, if I remain just as I 
remained while Troy was flourishing, and if thou, my husband, 
art afar from me, to be lamented by me eternally ? Now 'tis 
a field of corn where once Troy stood ; and the ground, destined 
to be plied with the sickle, is rich, fattened with Phrygian blood. 
Victorious, thou art absent, and it is not granted to me to know 
what is the cause of thy delaying, or in what corner of the world, 
in thy cruelty, thou art concealed. Whoever steers his stranger 
bark to these shores, departs after having been asked by me 
many a question about thee ; and to him is intrusted the paper 
inscribed with my fingers for him to deliver to thee, if he should 
only see thee anywhere. 

" More to my advantage would the walls of Troy be standing 
even now. I should then know where thou art fighting, and 
warfare alone should I dread, and with those of many others 
would my complaints be joined. What to fear I know not ; 
still, bewildered, I dread everything ; and a wide field lies open 
for my apprehensions. Whatever dangers the sea presents, 
whatever the land, these I suspect to be the causes of a delay 
so prolonged. 

" While in my folly T am imagining these things, such is the 
inconstancy of you men, that thcu mayest be captivated by 
some foreign beauty. Perhaps, too, thou mayest be telling how 



PENELOPE. 159 

homely thy wife is, who minds only the spindle and the distaff. 
May I prove mistaken, and may this charge vanish into unsub- 
stantial air ; and mayest thou not, if free to return, still desire 
to be absent ! My father, Icarius, urges me to leave a widowed 
bed, and is always chiding thy protracted delay. Let him chide 
on ; thine I am, thy Penelope must I be called ; the wife of 
Ulysses will I ever be. Suitors from Dulychium, and Samos, 
and the lofty Zacynthus, a wanton crew, are besetting me ; and 
in thy palace do they rule, with no one to hinder them ; thy 
wealth, our very entrails, are they dissipating ..... I have no 
strength to drive the enemy from thy abode ; come speedily, 
then, the refuge and sanctuary of thy family. 

" Thou hast, and long mayest thou have, a son, who in his 
tender years ought to have been trained to the virtues of his 
father. Think of Laertes ; that thou mayest close his eyes 
he still drags on the closing hours of his existence. I, no doubt, 
who was but a girl when thou didst depart, shall seem to have 
become an old woman, though thou shouldst return at once." 

Penelope, in the language thus attributed to her by Ovid, 
draws no exaggerated picture of the unseemly conduct of the 
aspirants to ber favor. Their number, alone, would have been 
sufficient to render their cause odious to the fair object of their 
vows. The little island of Dulychium — one of a cluster to the 
west of the Peloponnesus — had contributed fifty-two, and Samos 
— now Cephalonia — twenty-four. They had gathered from all 
quarters of the insular realm of Ulysses, and from the adjacent 
isles which acknowledged his sway — in all, one hundred and 
eight. The names and characters of several of them have been 
preserved. Eurymachus and Antinoiis were the chief in rank, 
the former being the candidate preferred by Laertes above his 
rivals. One Medon, a herald, is mentioned as being personally 
disagreeable ; Irus, a beggar of Ithaca, seems to have based 
his claim upon his gigantic size ; Melanthius, Ulysses 7 goatherd, 
was admitted by the suitors among them, in view of the services 



160 PENELOPE. 

he might render in supplying their table with the flesh of the 
royal flocks. Homer thus depicts their extravagance through 
the mouth of Telemachus : 

" Still through my court the noise of revel rings 
And wastes the wise frugality of kings ; 
Scarce all my herds their luxury suffice, 
Scarce all my wine their midnight hours supplies ; 
Safe in my youth, in riot still they grow, 
Nor in the helpless orphan dread a foe." 

Ulysses was not altogether unworthy of his wife and son. 
it is true that he lived eight years with the ocean nymph, 
Calypso, in her enchanted island Ortygia, but as he had no 
vessel or other means of getting away, he can hardly be blamed 
for remaining. Minerva called a council of the gods, and 
complained to Jupiter of Calypso's forced detention of the 
ting of Ithaca. We have the authority of the goddess for 
asserting that the infidelity of Ulysses was totally beyond his 
-iontrol. She thus described his situation : 

" Sole in an isle, encircled hy the main, 
Abandon'd, banish'd from his native reign ; 
Unblest he sighs, detain'd by lawless charms, 
And prest, unwilling, in Calypso's arms. 
Nor friends are there, nor vessel to convey, 
^or oars to cut th' immeasurable way." 

Mercury a r a^ commissioned by Jupiter to proceed to Ortygia, 
and to communicate to Calypso the desire, nay the will, of the 
gods that Ulysses bo released and furnished with the means 
of returning to his home. The conversation which ensued 
between them after the delivery of the message, sufficiently 
characterizes their respective situations : 

" Ulysses ! with a sigh she thus began, 
O sprang from gods J in wisdom more than man I 
Is then thy heme i\% passion of thy heart ? 
Thus wilt thou brvv ae ? Are we thus to part f 



PENELOPE. 161 

Farewell, and ever joyful mayst thou be — 

Nor break the transport with one thought of me. 

But oh ! Ulysses, wert thou given to know 

"What fate yet dooms thee still to undergo, 

Thy heart might settle in this scene of ease, 

And e'en these slighted charms might learn to please. 

A willing goddess and immortal life 

Might banish from thy mind an absent wife. 

Am I inferior to a mortal dame ? 

Less soft my features, less august my frame ? 

Or shall the daughters of mankind compare 

Their earth-born beauties with the heavenly fair ?" 

Ulysses, deaf to these solicitations — for, as has been said 
le had been eight years upon the island — thus in Homeric vers© 
returned reply : 

" Lov'd and ador'd, goddess, as thou art, 
Forgive the weakness of a human heart. 
Tho' well I see thy graces far above 
The dear, tho' mortal object of my love, 
Of youth eternal well the difference know, 
And the short date of fading charms below, 
Yet every day, while absent thus I roam, 
I languish to return and die at home." 

At last, after having once more suffered the horrors of 
shipwreck, Ulysses, guided by Minerva, set foot upon the coast 
of Ithaca. Yielding to the advice of the goddess, he consented 
to assume the guise of a beggar, that he might mingle with 
the throngs that swarmed about his palace, and witness for 
himself the wanton revels of the suitors : 

" A swift old age o'er all his members spread ; 
A sudden frost was sprinkled on his head ; 
Nor longer in the heavy eyeball shin'd 
The glance divine, forth beaming from the mind. 
His robe, which spots indelible besmear, 
In rags dishonest flutters with the air. 
A stag's torn hide is lapt about his reins ; 
A rugged staff his trembling hand sustains ; 



162 PENELOPE. 

And at his side a wretched scrip was hung, 
Wide patch'd and knotted to a twisted thong. 
So look'd the chief, so mov'd ; to mortal eyes 
Object uncouth ! A man of miseries !" 

Thus disguised, Ulysses proceeded to the lodge of Eumaeus, 
his faithful swineherd. He found the veteran engaged in making 
buskins, and in watching over the scarce four hundred porkers 
which remained, " doomed to supply the suitors' wasteful feast." 
Two of them, however, were destined to be put to a more 
legitimate use, for Eumaeus, compassionating the stranger's 
wretched plight, was moved to deeds of hospitality : 

" Straight to the lodgment of his herd he ran, 
Where the fat porkers slept beneath the sun. 
Of two his cutlass launch'd the spouting blood ; 
These quarter'd, sing'd, and fix'd on forks of wood, 
All hasty on the hissing coals he threw ; 
And, smoking, back the tasteful viands drew, 
Broachers and all : then on the board display'd 
The ready meal, before Ulysses laid, 
With flour imbrown'd ; next mingled wine yet new, 
And luscious as the bee's nectareous dew." 

The poet having thus embellished a prosaic theme — the 
cooking and serving of a pork steak — proceeds to treat a subject 
more obviously within the scope of his art — the meeting of 
father and son, and the manner in which Ulysses, at the behest 
of Minerva, discovered himself to Telemachus. They then con- 
sulted together upon the means they should employ to disperse 
or destroy the suitors. Telemachus was of opinion, that as they 
were but two, while the suitors numbered one hundred and 
eight, it was best to dispose of them singly. Ulysses was 
introduced to the palace in his beggar's garb ; his dog Argus 
recognized him in his tatters : 

"The dog, whom fate had granted to behold 
His lord, when twenty tedious years had roll'd, 
Takes a last look, and having seen him, dies ; 
So clos'd forever faithful Argus' eyes." 



PENELOPE. 363 

Ulysses, in pursuance of the plan he had formed, stooped to 
beg at his own table, and to accept in grateful humility the 
morsels which the rioters gave him, at the same time taunting 
his poverty and his age. At last the mendicant wooer Irus, 
having forgotten himself so far as to wonder why he did not 
dash Ulysses' teeth out, the suitors proposed a fight, promising 
to stand neutral, and to be the arbiters of the fray. Ulysses, 
reserving half his strength, lest he might otherwise disclose the 
latent hero, dealt Irus a blow upon his jaw-bone, the effects of 
which are thus described : 

"Down dropp'd lie stupid from the stunning wound ; 
His feet extended, quivering, beat the ground 
His mouth and nostrils spout a purple flood, 
His teeth, all shatter'd, rush immix'd with blood. 
The peers transported, as outstretch'd he lies, 
With bursts of laughter rend the vaulted skies." 

Penelope, who rarely gratified the train of aspirants by her 
presence, was induced by her maids to descend during the 
sojourn of Ulysses. They besought her to appear bathed, 
anointed and adorned : 

"Ah me, forbear, returns the queen, forbear; 
Oh, talk not, talk not of vain beauty's care ; 
No more I bathe, since he no longer sees 
Those charms, for whom alone I wish to please ; 
The day that bore Ulysses from this coast, 
Blasted the little bloom these cheeks could boast ; 
But instant bid Autonoe descend, 
Instant Hippodame our steps attend ; 
111 suits it female rirtue to be seen 
Alone, indecent, in the walks of men. 
Then while Eurynome the mandate bears, 
From Heaven Minerva shoots with guardian cares ; 
O'er all her senses, as her couch she prest, 
She pours a pleasing, deep and death-like rest: 
With every beauty every feature arms, 
Bids her cheeks glow, and lights up all her charms ; 



164 PENELOPE. 

In her love-darting eyes awakes the fires — 
Immortal gifts ! to kindle soft desires — 
From limb to limb an air majestic sheds, 
And the pure ivory o'er her bosom spreads." 

Ulysses witnessed the interview which succeeded between 
his queen and the one hundred and eight. She did not hesitate 
to reproach them with their unusual style of wooing, which 
consisted in consuming the substance of her whose heart they 
sought to win : 

" Careless to please, with insolence ye woo ! 
The generous lovers, studious to succeed, 
Bid their whole herds and flocks in banquets bleed ; 
By precious gifts the vow sincere display ; 
You, only you, make her ye love your prey. 
Well pleased Ulysses hears his queen deceive 
The suitor train, and raise a thirst to give; 
False hopes she kindles, but these hopes betray, 
And promise, yet elude, the bridal day." 

The suitors, whose generosity was thus stimulated, laid their 
several offerings at the feet of their unwilling hostess. These 
hardly seem to have been of a value proportionate to the ardor 
of their suit ; indeed they were far from presenting an equivalent 
for the forced entertainment they had wrung from the reluctant 
household. Antinous gave a robe of shining dyes, with twelve 
gold clasps ; Eurymachus, an amber bracelet set in gold, and a 
pair of ear-rings, tremulous with the flickering light of triple 
stars ; Pisander, a necklace wrought with art. The poet pursues 
the shabby inventory no farther, merely adding, in a general 
way, that: 

" Every peer, expressive of Ms heart, 
A gift bestows." 

Penelope, compelled at last to fix a term to her widowhood, 
and forced to choose from the one hundred and eight, was 



PENELOPE. 165 

inspired by Minerva with an idea of Olympian origin. She thus 
addressed the suitor train in the hearing of Ulysses : 

" Say you, whom these forbidden walls inclose, 
For whom my victims bleed, my vintage flows, 
If these neglected, faded charms can move, 
Or is it but a vain pretence, you love ? 
If I the prize, if me you seek to wife, 
Hear the conditions and commence the strife : 
Who first Ulysses' wondrous bow shall bend, 
And through twelve ringlets the fleet arrow send, 
Him will I follow, and forsake my home, 
For him forsake this lov'd, this wealthy dome, 
Long, long the scene of all my past delight, 
And still to last the vision of my night I" 

The bow of Ulysses was taken from the massive case in 
which it had so long reposed ; and a coffer containing six brass 
and as many silver rings was brought upon the ground. Pene- 
lope sat, veiled, in the portal of the palace, with a handmaid on 
either side, watching the progress of the tilt. Leiodes, a priest, 
and the only suitor whose conscience smote him for the un 
worthy part he was enacting, was the first to whom the trial 
fell. After indulging the reflection, that it would be far better 

" With some humble wife to live, 
Whom gold should gain or destiny should give," 

he rejected the bow and abandoned the contest. From hand to 
hand passed the sturdy weapon. One hundred and five of the 
suitors tugged in vain at its rebellious string ; none remained but 
Eurymachus and Antinous. Attributing a portion of its resist- 
ance to the inertia acquired in twenty years 7 repose, they resolved 
to try the effect of a little lubrication. A pile was prepared and 
set on fire : 

"With melted lard they soak the weapon o'er, 
Ohafe every knot, and supple every pore. 
Vain all their art, and all their strength as vain, 
The bow inflexible resists their pain." 



166 PENELOPE. 

Thus discomfited, they suddenly remembered that the da} 
was sacred to Apollo, and ascribed their failure to the anger of 
the god at the neglect of his anniversary. So they resolved to 
postpone the trial till the morrow, and spend the remainder of 
the day in sacrifice and wassail. In the meantime, Ulysses 
requested permission to essay the reluctant instrument. The 
suitors scoffingly consented, mocking at his withered arm and 
shrunken muscle : 

" And now his well-known bow the master bore, 
Turn'd on all sides, and view'd it o'er and o'er, 
Lest time or worms had done the weapon wrong, 
Its owner absent, and untried so long. 
While some deriding — How he turns the bow ! 
Some other like it sure the man must know, 
Or else would copy ; or in bows he deals ; 
Perhaps he makes them, or perhaps he steals. 

Heedless he heard them, but disdain'd reply, 
The bow perusing with exactest eye. 
Prom his essaying hand the string let fly, 
Twang'd short and sharp, like the shrill swallow's cry. 
A general horror ran through all the race, 
Sick was each heart and pale was every face ; 
Signs from above ensued : th' unfolding sky 
In lightning burst ; Jove thundered from on high. 
Fir'd at the call of Heaven's Almighty Lord, 
He snatch'd the shaft that glitter'd on the board : 
Then, sitting as he was, the cord he drew, 
Through every ringlet levelling his view ; 
Then notch'd the shaft, releas'd and gave it wing. 
The whizzing arrow vanished from the string, 
Sung on direct, and threaded every ring. 
The solid gate its fury scarcely bounds, 
Pierc'd thro' and thro', the solid gate resounds. 
Then fierce the hero o'er the threshold strode; 
Stript of his rags, he blazed out like a god!" 



Ulysses commenced the slaughter of the suitors by the death 
of Antinous, who, at the moment of raising a goblet and drawing a 
long breatk in order to drain it at a draught, received the second 



PENELOPE. 167 

arrow of the quiver full in his throat. Eurymachus, who now 
deplored that privilege of birth which had placed him next in 
rank to Antinous, and naturally entitled him to be disposed of 
in his turn, proposed a compromise to Ulysses. He acknow- 
ledged the errors of the suitors, and was disposed to confess the 
whole amount of the wrongs the king had sustained in his 
despoiled palace and exhausted land. Still, he was of the 
opinion that Antinous was responsible for all the depredations 
which the other suitors, his inferiors, had committed ; and 
Antinous, he said, had paid the forfeit of his crimes. He sug- 
gested that Ulysses restrain his indignation, and permit the one 
hundred and seven to defray the expenses they had occasioned, 
by gifts of brass, gold and treasures ; adding, that each prince 
would be glad to add a bonus of two hundred oxen ; thus, he 
urged, the waste of years would be refunded in a day. Ulysses 
spurned the bribe, and pierced Eurymachus incontinently through 
the liver. Anphinomus, slain by Telemachus, was the third 
victim. The suitors, aided by Melanthius, having ransacked the 
royal magazine, and confident in their immense superiority of 
numbers, combined against the mad archer and his presumptuous 
son. Ulysses, Telemachus and Eumaous, contended with varying 
success against these fearful odds. At length, Minerva, descend- 
ing in the friendly form of Mentor, joined the Ithacensian forces. 
Javelins and arrows rained thick and fast ; Minerva turned the 
shafts of the enemy aside with her breath, and they fell harmless 
and spent, short and wide of the mark. Not so those of the 
Ithacans : the bulletin of the fight, compiled by Homer from 
official records, suggests to the reader an early Jacquerie or a 
classic St. Bartholomew. Agelaus, Eurynomus, Pisander, Am- 
phimedon, Polybus, Demoptolemus, Elatus, Eurydamus, Ctesip- 
pus, Damastorides, Leocritus, Leiodes, in turn met their doom ; 
in short, one hundred and six out of one hundred and eight. 
Phemius, a poet, and Medon, the herald of unprepossessing 

appearance, alone were spared : 
11 



168 PENELOPE. 

" With timorous awe, 
From the dire scene th' exempted two withdraw, 
Scarce sure of life, look round and trembling move 
To the bright altar of Protector Jove. 
Keanwhile Ulysses search'd the dome, to find 
If yet there live of all th' offending kind. 
Not one ! complete the bloody task he found, 
All steep'd in blood, all gasping on the ground." 

Penelope, during the progress of the fight, lay wrapped id 
sleep. Euryclea awoke her with the glad tidings of the return 
of the hero and the destruction of the suitors. The queen 
listened with incredulity, and even when brought into the 
presence of her lord, refused to believe : 

" Amaz'd she sat, and impotent to speak, 
O'er all the man her eyes she rolls in vain ; 
Now hopes, now fears, now knows, now doubts again. 
At length Telemachus — Oh, who can find 
A woman like Penelope unkind ! 
Why thus in silence ? why, with winning charms, 
Thus slow to fly with rapture to his arms ? 
Stubborn the breast that with no transport glows, 
When twice ten years are past of mighty woes ; 
To softness lost, to spousal love unknown, 
The gods have formed that rigid heart of stone I" 

Penelope's distrust, however, was not altogether without 
reason : Ulysses was still dressed in his beggar's garb, and the 
frosts of threescore years and ten lay cold and white upon his 
brow. Twenty years was indeed a long time, but it would 
hardly explain such a transformation as this. So Minerva 
recalled her spell, and Ulysses shone forth in the splendor of his 
royalty and his manhood : 

1 The warrior goddess gives his frame to shine, 
With majesty enlarg'd and grace divine ; 
Back from his brows in wavy ringlets fly 
His thick large locks, of hyacinthine dye." 



PENELOPE. 169 

Penelope believed at last ; and she fell upon Ulysses' neck 
and wept. This, the poet tells us, was in the evening ; and 
he adds that the night which followed, was an unusually 
protracted one, inasmuch 

" As Pallas backward held the rising day, 
The wheels of night retarding." 

Here, in the twenty-third book of the Odyssey, the story of 
Penelope ends. The daughter of Icarius was more fortunate 
in death than in life : she found a historian in Homer ; an 
editor in Ovid ; and in Fenelon a biographer for her son. 
But Penelope would have lived forever without either the 
poet or the archbishop : an assertion which we shall soon 
have occasion to sustain inferentially, in showing how three 
ungrammatical lines of an inferior Roman annalist have con- 
ferred immortality upon Cornelia, a sister heroine. 



CORNELIA 



One tfc Dusand years have passed ; the lapse of centuries 
carries us from Ithaca to Latium ; we glide from mythology into 
history, citing Plutarch where we lately quoted Homer ; our 
theme no longer the 'Greek Penelope, but the Roman Cornelia, 
Scipio Africanus her father, and the two Gracchi her sons. 

Cornelia was the youngest of the four children of Scipio 
Africanus the Elder and Emilia his wife. She was born one 
hundred and eighty-nine years before Christ. No details have 
reached us of her early life ; we are briefly informed that upon 
the death of Scipio, the friends of the family, in selecting a hus- 
band for the peerless Cornelia, fixed their choice upon Tiberius 
Sempronius Gracchus, a tribune of the people, and until lately 
an enemy of Africanus. He had, however, in the crisis of Sci- 
pio's fortunes, separated himself from his colleagues, and forget- 
ting his private resentment, made a vigorous and, as the event 
proved, successful effort in behalf of his political foe. This 
graceful and honorable act was rewarded by the hand of Cor- 
nelia, and the marriage took place one hundred and sixty-nine 
years before Christ, the bride being in her twentieth year. 

The union was a happy one, and Cornelia was twelve times a 

mother. Tiberius was once honored with the censorship, and 
170 








GDRNEL1A, 



CORNELIA. 171 

twice with the consulate. The care of the household and the 
education of the family devolved wholly upon Cornelia, and she 
acquitted herself of the duties in a manner which has elicited the 
admiration of the world. She maintained in herself and trans- 
mitted to her sons the grand and severe virtues of her father. 
She had inherited from Scipio a love for the arts and for litera- 
ture, and her letters, which were extant in the time of Quin- 
tilian — two hundred years afterwards — were often cited with 
praise by him and by Cicero. 

It has been intimated by the French historian Rollin, that 
Cornelia did not bear her honors meekly, and that she placed an 
undue estimate upon herself and her family. He cites a passage 
from Juvenal as his authority for this opinion. But it is appa- 
rent from the text, that the satirist intended no such insinu- 
ation : 

a Malo Yenusinam quam te, Cornelia, mater 
Gracchorum, si, cum magnis virtutibus, affers 
Grande supercilium, et numeras in dote triumphos." 

The meaning evidently is, that he would prefer a Yenusian 
village girl to Cornelia, if, with her transcendent virtues, the 
mother of the Gracchi brought a supercilious brow and boastful 
tongue. Dryden's paraphrase clearly shows that Juvenal's lines 
are not to be understood in a reproachful sense : 

" Some country girl, scarce to a curtsey bred, 
Would I much rather than Cornelia wed, 
If, supercilious, haughty, proud and vain, 
She brought her father's triumphs in her train." 

Cornelia's happiness was now violently interrupted. Tibe- 
rius, according to a legend which Cicero and Plutarch think not 
unworthy of record, found, on awaking one morning, a pair of 
serpents upon his bed. He narrated the circumstance to the 
soothsayers, asking their interpretation of the prodigy. They 
considered the matter, and finally reported as follows : The 



172 CORNELIA. 

serpents were, in their opinion, prophetic, and their appearance 
together could not be regarded in any other light than that of 
an omen. If Tiberius killed the male, his death, they said, would 
be the consequence : if he killed the female, he would lose his 
wife Cornelia. With that peculiar obtuseness which seems to be 
a besetting and inevitable weakness in the minds of those con- 
sulting oracles or interpreting omens, Tiberius did not perceive 
the possibility of releasing both the serpents and of killing 
neither — thus preserving the life of his wife without sacrificing 
his own. Convinced, however, of the existence of a dilemma, 
and believing that an alternative alone was left him, he thought 
within himself that he was much older than Cornelia, and conse- 
quently, in the order of nature, nearer the close of his career ; 
he reflected that the children had more need of their mother by 
whom they had been reared, than of their father whom they 
rarely saw, and concluded that it was more suitable for him to 
die than for her. He therefore killed the male serpent, and 
soon after perished, leaving his twelve sons and daughters to the 
care of Cornelia. 

Though deeply bowed by this affliction, the widow gave her 
whole soul to the augmented duties which now devolved upon 
her. In her prosperity, she had excited admiration ; in her ad- 
versity, she won the love and respect of the nation. All who 
knew her acknowledged that Tiberius had acted wisely in choos- 
ing to die for so excellent a woman. During her widowhood 
she lost nine children by successive bereavements, devoting her- 
self, however, with increased assiduity to the instruction of those 
who remained. She was left, at last, with one daughter, Sem- 
pronia, and two sons, Tiberius and Caius. She seems to have 
concentrated upon these two boys the tenderness which she had 
before shared with their brothers, and to have bestowed upon 
the culture of their minds the mos^ affectionate care ; so that, 
although they possessed all the advantages of an illustrious birth 
and name, and were endowed with the happiest gifts of genius 



CORNELIA. 173 

and disposition, education was allowed to have contributed more 
to their perfections than nature. 

The historians of Rome have given undue importance to 
Cornelia's refusal of a crown, which one of the Ptolemies of 
Egypt offered her, together with his hand and a seat upon 
his throne. The offer was not one which she would have been 
likely to accept, as the king who made it — and who can have 
been no other than Ptolemy Physco — was in every way 
unworthy of her. He was one of the most brutal tyrants 
mentioned in history ; his body was so swollen and bloated 
by intemperance, that he was unable to walk, and never 
appeared before his subjects, unless mounted upon a chariot 
and supported by trusses and other ingenious devices. Cornelia 
must be supposed to have been fully acquainted with his 
infirmities, as Publius Scipio, afterwards known as Africanus 
the Younger, and the husband of her daughter Sempronia, 
had been sent by the Romans upon an embassy to Alexandria, 
where he had dined in the palace of the king, and had been 
a daily witness of his excesses. It is attributing an unreason- 
able influence to royal grandeur, to imagine it capable of 
perverting the judgment of a woman like Cornelia, or to sup- 
pose her to have exercised self-denial in declining the proffer- 
ed honor. 

The reply of Cornelia to a wealthy lady of Campania, who 
requested to see her jewels, is the most memorable incident 
in her career. Adroitly turning the conversation upon subjects 
likely to interest and detain her visitor, till Tiberius and 
Caius came home from school, she said, as they entered the 
room, " These are my jewels!" Probably no character was 
ever so clearly drawn in so few words ; no delineation can 
possibly add to it ; if nothing were known of Cornelia but 
this one speech, the historian would still find it a sufficient 
basis upon which to construct th whole character. The three 
obscure lines in which Yalerius Maximus narrates the anecdote 



174 CORNELIA. 

introducing it merely as an incidental illustration of his subject 
in his discourse De Paupertate, have probably been as often 
translated, as widely repeated, and as deeply reflected upon, 
as any other three which have been left us by the writers of 
antiquity. 

There was a difference of nine years in the ages of Tiberius 
and Caius ; they attained their political ascendency, therefore, 
at different periods. Had they flourished together and acted 
in concert, their power would doubtless have been irresistible. 
Their separation in time was a serious disadvantage, and 
probably prevented their success. Tiberius enjoyed a high 
reputation for virtue, sobriety, temperance, at an age when 
youth is looked upon as an excuse, or at least a palliation, for 
idleness and vice. He was admitted to the college of Augurs, 
as a compliment to his character rather than in recognition 
of his birth. An anecdote of the period shows in what esteem 
he was held, and what fruits the careful nurture of his mother 
had already borne : 

Appius Claudius, who had been both censor and consul, and 
whose honorable discharge of his duties had since raised him 
to the rank of President of the Senate, was one evening taking 
supper with the Augurs ; he conversed a long time with 
Tiberius, and towards the end of the entertainment, offered him 
his daughter Claudia in marriage. Tiberius, who must be 
presumed to have been acquainted with the lady, accepted 
the proposal with joy and alacrity. Appius went immediately 
home to communicate the tidings to his wife. "Antistia, my 
love," he said, on entering the house, "I have contracted our 
daughter Claudia." Antistia, surprised and perhaps vexed at 
her husband's omission to consult her upon so momentous a 
subject, exclaimed, " Why so suddenly? I cannot conceive why 
you should act thus hastily, unless, indeed, Tiberius Gracchus 
be the man you have pitched upon \ J) The worthy matron was 
doubtless conciliated by the reply that it was no otner thau 



CORNELIA. 175 

Tiberius — a choice which neither required reflection on the part 
of the mother, nor involved hesitation on that of the daughter. 

Cornelia had, in the meantime, married her only daughter, 
Sempronia, to Publius iEruilianus, who bore, at a later period, 
the title of Scipio Africanus the Younger, obtaining that of Scipio 
by adoption into the family, and that of Africanus by the de- 
struction of Carthage. Tiberius served for a time under him in 
Africa, and dwelt beneath the same tent. He excelled all of his 
age in valor, at the same time bearing himself with such 
modesty that none of his rivals could take offence. He was be- 
loved by the whole army, and universally regretted when he 
quitted it. 

Scipio 7 s glory and popularity being continually upon the in- 
crease, a portion of his fame was reflected upon the family which 
had adopted him. Cornelia, the daughter of one Scipio, heard 
herself styled, in eulogistic phrase, the mother-in-law of another. 
Her maternal pride was wounded at the reflection that the glory 
of the father had not been perpetuated in her sons, but had 
been diverted into another line, and she reproached Tiberius and 
Caius that she was called the mother-in-law of Scipio, not the 
mother of the Gracchi. Whether to this reproach is to be attri- 
buted the rashness and indiscretion of her sons, in their zeal to 
achieve a hasty fame, it would be impossible now to decide ; his- 
torians have generally chosen to trace a connection between the 
dissatisfaction of Cornelia and the turbulent measures which at 
once marked her sons' accession to power and precipitated their 
fall. 

Upon the appointment of Tiberius to the office of tribune of 
the people, he embarked in an enterprise having for its object 
the restoration to the poor of their share in the public lands. 
It had formerly been the custom of the Romans, when they 
acquired land by conquest from their neighbors, to add a part of 
it to the national domains, and to let the remainder, at low rates. 
to necessitous citizens. But this custom had of late fallen into 



176 CORNELIA. 

disuse, the rich having obtained a voice in public affairs which 
enabled them to exclude the poor, except upon the payment of 
exorbitant sums. The consequence was the ruin of the agricul- 
tural classes, and a dearth, even in the rich grazing districts of 
Tuscany, of husbandmen and shepherds. The land they should 
have tilled was occupied by foreign slaves and barbarians, who, 
after the natives were dispossessed, cultivated it for the rich. 
Tiberius, inflamed by the people's enthusiasm in his behalf, by 
the writings which they posted on the public monuments, walls 
and porticoes, urging him to action, drew up the bill which was 
to relieve them. It was simply a revival of the Lex Licinia, 
which prohibited any one from possessing more than five hun- 
dred acres of land. Its provisions were mild in the extreme ; 
those who had accumulated more land than was permitted, 
receiving indemnity on giving up their claims, instead of incur- 
ring punishment for their infringement of the law. The people 
were content that no reprisals should be taken for the past, if 
they might be protected against future usurpations. 

The rich, and a large majority of the senate, resisted the pas- 
sage of the law. They induced Tiberius' colleague in the tri- 
buneship to oppose it. Tiberius plead daily for the poor, upon 
the rostrum, in persuasive language. " The wild beasts of 
Italy," he said, "have their caves to retire to, but the brave men 
who spill their blood in her cause have nothing left but air 
and light. Without houses, without any settled habitation, they 
wander from place to place with their wives and children ; and 
their generals do but mock them, when at the head of their 
armies, they exhort their men to fight for their sepulchres and 
domestic gods ; for among the whole vast number, there is not- 
perhaps, a Roman who has an altar that belonged to his ances- 
tors, or a sepulchre in which their ashes rest." 

Incensed by the opposition of his colleague Octavius, Tibe- 
rius dropped the moderate bill which he had hitherto urged, and 
proposed another, more severe upon the rich, inasmuch as it 



OORNELIA. 177 

required them immediately to abandon the lands which they held 
in defiance of the unrepealed, though unenforced, Licinian law. 
He forbade all other magistrates to exercise their functions till the 
agrarian laws were passed. He put his own seal upon the doors 
of the Temple of Saturn, thus suspending the operations of the 
publio treasury. All the departments of the government were 
at once brought to a stand. The rich dressed in mourning, that 
they might excite the compassion of the public ; failing in this, 
they suborned assassins, and plotted the murder of Tiberius. 

The latter now resolved to remove Octavius from the tri- 
buneship ; it was evident the law could not otherwise be passed. 
He first addressed him in public, taking him by the hand, and 
conjuring him to satisfy the legitimate demands of the people. 
Octavius refused to comply. Tiberius then said it was evident 
that one of them must be deposed, and suggested that Octavius 
propose his — Tiberius' — removal to the thirty-five tribes of 
voters ; promising to retire from office, if his fellow-citizens so 
willed it. Octavius refused ; whereupon Tiberius proposed the 
removal of his colleague. When eighteen of the thirty-five 
tribes had voted for his expulsion, Tiberius ordered him to be 
dragged from the tribunal. He filled the vacancy by appointing 
one Mutius, a man of little note ; the agrarian law was then 
passed ; three commissioners were selected to survey the lands 
in dispute, and to superintend their distribution. 

The senate and the patricians were deeply exasperated by 
these proceedings, while the people were no less indignant at the 
senate's dissatisfaction. One of the friends of Tiberius died sud- 
denly, and malignant spots appeared upon the body, suggesting 
the presence of poison. This suspicion was confirmed by what 
occurred at the burning of the corpse. It burst, and emitted 
such a quantity of vapor and corruption that it extinguished the 
fire. Fresh wood was brought, but it was with difficulty that the 
body was consumed. Upon this, Tiberius put on mourning, and 
leading his children to the forum, commended them and their 



178 CORNELIA. 

mother to the protection of the people — thus intimating that he 
gave up his own life for lost. 

At this juncture, Attalus, king of Pergamus, died, constitut- 
ing the Roman people his sole heir. Tiberius, seeking to avail 
himself of this incident, proposed that all the money found in 
the treasury of Attalus should be distributed among the people, 
to enable them to purchase tools with which to cultivate the 
lands lately assigned them. This still further offended the 
senate, and one of that body accused Tiberius of aspiring to 
the title of king ; and even asserted that the messenger from 
Pergamus had brought him the diadem of Attalus, for his use 
when seated upon the throne. Stung by this unjust charge, 
Tiberius resolved to lower still further the pride and authority 
of the senate : he prepared and proposed several laws in this 
view. The people assembled in the capitol, and Tiberius, 
though much discouraged by a dream and an omen, which 
seemed to forebode disaster, set forward to join them. On his 
arrival, the people expressed their joy in acclamations, forming 
a circle about him to protect him from rough treatment. He 
was secretly informed that the senators and others of the landed 
interest had resolved upon his assassination, and for that pur- 
pose had armed themselves, their friends and slaves. Tiberius 
and his adherents tucked up their gowns and prepared foi 
combat. Their friends at a distance, not understanding the 
nature of this movement, asked what it meant. Tiberius lifted 
his hands to his head, to indicate that his life was in danger. 
His adversaries, interpreting this gesture to suit their own pur- 
poses, ran to the senate, announcing that he had demanded thi 
crown. The senators, headed by one Nasica, and armed wit* 
the clubs and bludgeons which their servants had brought, mad« 
towards Tiberius, felling those who stood in their way. His> 
friends being either killed or dispersed, Tiberius fled, but in his 
flight stumbled over the prostrate body of one of his party 
Upon attempting to rise, he was struck by Publius Satureiuj 



CORNELIA. 179 

with the leg of a chair ; the second and fatal blow was dealt by 
Lucius Rufus. who afterwards publicly boasted of the exploit. 
Three hundred persons perished in this sedition, the first in which 
Roman blood had been shed since the expulsion of Tarquin. 

This digression, involving the fate of Tiberius, is essential 
to our story, showing, as it does, under what circumstances 
Cornelia was called upon to part with her tenth child, and the 
eldest of those whom she had styled her jewels. She claimed 
the body of her son, sending Caius to entreat the senators that 
it might be secretly taken away and buried in the night. They 
refused the request, ordering the corpse tc be thrown into the 
Tiber, with the carcasses of the three hundred traitors who had 
fallen in his cause. The mother bore the dispensation with a 
magnanimity which endeared her more than ever to the people ; 
and upon the accession to the tribunate of her last son, Caius. 
they erected a statue to her, with this inscription : 

Cornelia, the Mother of the Gracchi. 

Among the laws which Caius, as tribune, caused to be passed 
for the benefit of the people, was one regulating the markets 
and the price of breadstufFs ; another, relative to a distribution 
of public lands ; and still another, depriving the senatorial order 
of the judicial authority, and investing the equestrian order with 
it exclusively. As the people empowered him to select the 
three hundred judges himself, he became, in a manner, possessed 
of the sovereign power. He sent out colonies, constructed roads, 
and built public granaries. He went about, followed by throngs 
of architects, artificers, ambassadors, magistrates and officers. 
The senators, who both hated and feared him, could not refrain 
from admiring his amazing industry, and the energy and rapid- 
ity with which he effected his reforms. 

The senate having decided upon the rebuilding of Carthage, 
which had been lately destroyed by Scipio, Caius sailed to 



1F0 CORNELIA. 

superintend the labor of reconstruction and colonization. Dur- 
ing his absence, his colleague, Livius Drusus, who was in league 
with the senate to weaken his hold upon the people, made such 
concessions to the multitude, taking pains to assure them that 
they came from the senate, that Caius, informed of the scheme 
and of its probable success, returned hastily from Africa. But 
the people, cloyed with indulgence, welcomed him with dimin- 
ished favor, and it was obvious that his influence was already 
upon the decline. 

Lucius Opimius was now elected consul, and in his hatred 
of Caius, set about repealing several of his laws and annulling 
his measures at Carthage, hoping by these annoyances to incite 
him to some act of violence which would justify a sentence of 
banishment. He bore this treatment for a long time with 
patience, but at last, irritated beyond endurance, he collected 
his partisans and prepared for resistance. It is asserted that 
Cornelia encouraged him in this course, and even enrolled a 
large number of men and sent them into Rome in the disguise 
of reapers. Her letters which, as we have said, were extant 
two hundred years after her death, are said to have contained 
enigmatical allusions to this circumstance. Both parties posted 
themselves in the capitol on the morning of the day in which the 
vote was to be taken upon the repeal of Caius' laws. An acci- 
dental collision resulted in the death of a lictor, Quintus Antyl- 
lius, whose insolent conduct, however, at such a period of ex- 
citement, furnished a sufficient motive for his destruction. Caius 
deeply regretted the occurrence, being well aware that he had 
given his enemies the pretext they desired. Opimius rejoiced 
at the opportunity and foresaw an easy triumph. A heavy rain 
kept the combatants for a time apart ; Caius, as he returned 
home, stopped before his father's statue, giving vent to his 
sorrow in sighs and tears. Many of the people, moved to com- 
passion, accompanied him to his house and passed the night 
before his door, keeping watch and taking rest by turns. 



CORNELIA 181 

His partisans assembled the next morning upon the Aventine 
Hill, under the command of one Fulvius, a man of factious life, 
and for several just reasons, offensive to the senate. Caius was 
present in his toga, and unarmed, except with a small dagger. 
An ambassador was sent to Opimius in the forum, proposing 
terms of accommodation. He returned with the answer that 
criminals could not be allowed to treat by heralds, but should 
surrender themselves to justice before they interceded for 
mercy. The same herald was sent a second time, but as he 
made proposals in all respects identical with the first, he was 
detained. Opimius now offered pardon to all who should aban- 
don Gracchus ; the unhappy tribune was gradually deserted by 
his forces till he was left defenceless and at the mercy of the 
consul. Opimius led his men to the Aventine, and fell upon the 
remnant of the disaffected army with ungovernable fury. Three 
thousand Roman citizens were slain upon the spot. Caius took 
refuge with a single servant in a grove sacred to the Furies ; the 
servant, yielding to his master's entreaties, pierced him with his 
sword, and then killed himself at his side. The enemy came up, 
and having cut off the head of Gracchus, marched off with it as 
a trophy. Opimius had offered a reward for his head j the sum 
to be paid was to depend upon its weight. Septimuleius, one of 
Caius' bosom friends, having obtained possession of it and car- 
ried it home, removed the brains, pouring melted lead into the 
cavity. The consul, without testifying surprise at the unusual 
weight, a circumstance which was hardly to be looked for even 
in a son of Cornelia, paid the stipulated sum in gold — seventeen 
pounds by the scales. With Caius Gracchus perished the freedom 
of Rome. The Republic had long been verging to its fall : one 
century more, and Augustus Caesar mounted the imperial throne. 

By the death of Caius, Cornelia became virtually childless ; 
her only surviving daughter, Sempronia, being, to a certain 
extent, alienated by the disapproval, openly expressed by her 
husband Africanus, of the measures which had brought ruk 



182 CORNELIA. 

upon her brothers. She took up her residence at Misenum, 
upon a promontory overlooking the lovely expanse of water 
now known as the bay of Naples. She made no change in 
her mode of life, keeping her house always open, and her 
table always ready for purposes of hospitality. The kings in 
alliance with Rome expressed their regard by the frequent 
offer of presents. She was surrounded by men of letters, in 
whose society she was glad to pass her declining years. The 
afflictions and bereavements which she had suffered, so far 
from being forbidden themes, were the subjects upon which 
she best loved to converse. She often spoke of her father 
Africanus, delighting her listeners by descriptions of his private 
life and his domestic virtues. It was he, she said, who first 
uttered the sentiment that he was never so much occupied as 
when he had nothing to do, and never in such good company 
as when left to himself. She spoke of her sons without a sigh 
or a tear ; they had been killed on consecrated ground, and 
the spots upon which they fell were monuments worthy of 
them. She recounted their actions and their martyrdom, as 
if they had been heroes in ancient story. Her magnanimity and 
resignation passed with many for insensibility and inciitierence ; 
they imagined, says Plutarch, that age and the magnitude of 
her misfortunes had deprived her of understanding. But, he 
adds, those who were of that opinion seem rather to have 
wanted understanding themselves ; since they knew not how 
much a noble mind may, by a liberal education, be enabled to 
sustain itself against distress. 

Though two thousand years have passed since the occurrence 
of these events, the student of classic history can hardly recur, 
in thought, to this second period of the Roman annals, without, 
as it were, involuntarily recalling to mind, as types of its virtues 
and witnesses to its greatness, the members of the illustrious 
family whose fortunes we have sketched— Scipio, Cornelia, and 
the Gracchi. 



1 






GLEDRS.TRA. 



CLEOPATRA 



Cleopatra is the enthroned enchantress of the earth, the most 
fascinating coquette that ever existed. She captivated the 
great conqueror of the world, Julius Caesar; entranced the 
heart and the senses of the brave Marc Antony, and suc- 
ceeded in beguiling the watchful Octavius Caesar. Cleopatra 
gave, in herself, to the art of coquetry a magnificent and lus- 
trous exercise. Hers was the passionate poetry of coquetry. 
Her irresistible power lay in the ability to adapt herself to 
the peculiar tastes and to the varying characters of mankind 
— following Caesar to imperial Rome, sharing Marc Antony's 
maddest freaks. How she studied the gratification, the enjoy- 
ment, the caprices of her lovers, bringing them to her in a 
deliriu m. of voluptuous intoxication ! Now all deference to the 
great Julius ! now all wayward playfulness to the infatuated 
AntojTy ! 

Egypt's famous queen was born about the year 69 B. C. 
She was the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, and 
was, by the will of her father, made with her elder brother a 
joint successor in the rule of Egypt. But endless quarrels fol- 
lowed ; and it was to have these differences decided in her favor 
that Cleopatra appealed to Julius Caesar. 

12 183 



134 CLEOPATRA. 

Pompey, Caesar's great antagonist, had been overcome and 
slain, and Cleopatra, confident that, by her power of fascina- 
tion, she could at once obtain access to Caesar (who had come 
to Alexandria), devised a bold and successful procedure to 
obtain a favorable decision with regard to her queenly claims. 
We cannot better tell the story than does the quaint Sir 
Thomas North in his "Plutarch." 

" She, only taking Apollodorus of all friends, took a little boat, 
and went away with him in it in the night, and came and 
landed hard by the foot of the castle. Then having no other 
means to come into the court without being known, she laid 
herself down upon a mattress, or flock-bed, which Apollodorus, 
her friend, tied and bound up together like a bundle with a 
great leather thong; and so took her upon his back, and 
brought her thus hampered unto Caesar in at the castle-gate. 
This was the first occasion (as it is reported) that made Caesar 
to love her ; but afterwards, when he saw her sweet conversa- 
tion and pleasant entertainment, he fell into further liking with 
her, and did reconcile her again unto her brother the King, with 
condition that they should jointly reign together." But Julius 
Caesar's decision was exceedingly distasteful to Cleopatra's kingly 
brother, who resisted it, and took up arms against the Roman 
power. But he was crushed, his power completely broken 
by Caesar's victorious legions, and the vanquished and fugitive 
King drowned in an attempt to cross the river Nile. Cleopatra 
was now made Queen of Egypt by her infatuated adorer. She 
bore him a son, named Caesarian, and on Caesar's return to 
Rome the Queen followed him there. Caesar showed her the 
fondest adulation, and gave great offence to the stately Romans 
by placing Cleopatra's golden statue beside that of Venus. She 
remained in Rome until Julius was assassinated, and then feel- 
ing her unpopularity, now that her great protector was no more, 
hastily quitted the eternal city and retired to her own country. 



CLEOPATRA. 185 

This drew upon her the unjust suspicion of being in sym- 
pathy with the conspirators, Brutus and Cassius ; and it was 
afterwards, with the announced intention of inquiring into her 
behavior on this occasion, that Marc Antony, when marching 
against Parthia, sent orders for Cleopatra to appear before him 
and answer to this accusation. How the wily Queen brought 
by her seductions Marc Antony to her feet — conquering the 
conqueror — is again told by Plutarch. " She furnished herself 
with a world of gifts, store of gold and silver and of riches, 
and other sumptuous ornaments, as is credible enough she 
might bring from so great a house, and from so wealthy and 
rich a realm as Egypt was. But yet she carried nothing with 
her wherein she trusted more than in herself, and in the charms 
and enchantment of her passing beauty and grace. Therefore, 
when she was sent unto by divers letters, both from Antonius 
himself, and also from his friends, she made so light of it, and 
mocked Antonius so much, that she disdained to set forward 
otherwise, but to take her barge in the river of Cydnus, the 
poop whereof was of gold, the sails of purple, and the oars of 
silver, which kept stroke in rowing after the sound of the music 
of flutes, hautboys, zitherns, viols, and such other instruments 
as they played upon the barge. And now for the person of her- 
self : she was laid under a pavilion of gold tissue, attired like 
the goddess Venus, as commonly drawn in picture ; and hard 
by her, on either hand of her, pretty, fair boys, apparelled as 
painters do set forth god Cupid, with little fans in their hands, 
with which they fanned wind upon her. Her ladies and gentle- 
women, the fairest of them, were apparelled like the nymphs, 
nereids (which are the mermaids of the waters), and graces; 
some steering the helm, others tending the tackle and ropes of 
the barge, out of which there came a wonderful passing sweet 
savor of perfumes, that perfumed the wharf's side, pestered 
with innumerable multitudes of people. Some of them followed 



186 CLEOPATRA. 

the barge all along the river-side ; others ran out of the city to 
see her coming in, so that in the end, there ran such multi- 
tudes of people, one after another, to see her, that Antonius was 
left almost alone in the market-place, in his imperial seat, to 
give audience." 

This was a master-stroke of diplomacy in Cleopatra. The 
great triumvir, the summoning judge, left by himself to await 
her arrival, while the world Hocked to see her, and gazed in 
magnetized bewilderment ! Plutarch further goes on to say how 
the fascinater followed up her great advantage, and played her 
second winning card, as follows : — 

" When Cleopatra landed, Antonius sent to invite her to 
supper with him. But she sent him word again he should do 
better to come and sup with her. Antonius therefore, to show 
himself courteous unto her at her arrival, was contented to obey 
her, and went to supper with her ; where he found such passing 
sumptuous fare that no tongue can express it." The delinquent 
entertaining her judge, whose invitation she carelessly sets 
aside to ask him to accept hers; establishing herself at once on 
the ground of easy witchery and playful intimacy with the 
Roman governor sent to take an account of her behavior. Plu- 
tarch goes on. " The next night, Antonius feasting her, con- 
tended to pass her in magnificence and fineness, but she over- 
came him in both. So that he himself began to scorn the gross 
service of his house, in respect of Cleopatra's sumptuousness 
and fineness. And when Cleopatra found Antonius' feasts to be 
gross and soldier-like, in plain manner, she gave it to him 
thoroughly." Antony, the judge, became a real prisoner him- 
self, held in silken chains by the irresistible power of this 
woman's will. 

Tradition does not paint this remarkable queen as surpass- 
ingly beautiful, and tradition is substantiated by the medals 
still extant of her. But everything tends to prove she possessed 



CLEOPATRA. 187 

an incomparable charm of face and form, an inexpressible grace 
of conversation and manner. Her demeanor was so wonder- 
fully courteous, sweet, sportive, engaging, and varied, that we are 
told " that a man could not possibly be but taken." " Further- 
more," says Plutarch, "her voice and words were marvellous 
pleasant ; for her tongue was an instrument of music, which 
she easily tuned into any language that pleased her." 

Cleopatra had at her command a knowledge of several 
languages, which she spoke with equal grace, and seldom 
used an interpreter in speaking. Her taste for magnificence, 
too, combined with the cultivation and refinement acquired 
in her relations with Greece, united to make her all-powerful 
in seductive accomplishments. 

Is it any wonder that, under the intoxicating influence of this 
siren, Marc Antony forgot all he should have held most dear, — 
his devoted wife Fluvia, his home and country, — and given him- 
self up to days, lengthening into months, of the voluptuous 
pleasures of the senses ? 

But at length ill news from Rome compelled Marc Antony 
to tear himself from Cleopatra's entwining arms, and return 
to Italy. Here his presence was urgently needed ; but after 
Fluvia's death, the estrangement with Octavius Caesar was 
adjusted, and the seeming reconcilement cemented by Marc 
Antony marrying Octavia, the sister of Octavius Caesar. For 
some time, as if distrusting himself, Marc Antony withstood 
the temptation to trust himself again within the circle of the 
great sorceress' magic. But when in Syria, it seemed as if he 
was unable to resist longer her magnetism, and he sent mes- 
sengers to Cleopatra to come to him, offering her as " a welcom- 
ing gift" the provinces of Phoenicia, parts of Arabia, Cilicia, 
lower Syria, and the island of Cyprus. 

These magnificent gifts to an Egyptian greatly offended the 
Eomans ; and still further were they enraged by the names and 



188 CLEOPATRA. 

honors Antony caused to be paid to the twins (a son and a 
daughter) Cleopatra had brought him, whom he named the 
" Sun " and the " Moon." At Athens, in Armenia, or wherever 
his mistress might be, Marc Antony caused to be paid her 
immeasurable honors. Among the munificent presents he 
bestowed upon her was the famous library at Pergamus, con- 
sisting of more than two hundred thousand books, which was 
conveyed to Alexandria and given to the siren, to the un- 
speakable disgust of the Romans, who considered the prize 
rightly belonged to their own imperial city, as it was one of 
the spoils of victory. 

Octavius Caesar finally grew impatient, then indignant, at the 
neglect of his sister Octavia. The Roman dislike to Marc 
Antony was stirred to hatred. Antony bitterly denounced this, 
and both sides prepared for war. CleojDatra aided her lover 
by raising ships and money, but interfered with his plans by 
her inexperienced counsels. We need not follow the events 
of the war ; but the time that should have been spent in dis-^ 
ciplining his forces to meet the Roman legions, was largely oc- 
cupied in banquets and riotous gaieties. The first battle — a 
sea-fight — was lost by Marc Antony. Defeat after defeat 
followed, and Cleopatra busied herself with the gigantic project 
of transferring, by ships through the Red Sea, her treasures 
and herself to India. But the Arabs burned the ships, and 
the plan was abandoned. 

Octavius Caesar was rapidly gaining ground, and his armies 
overrunning the country, but Marc Antony repulsed him in his 
attack on Alexandria. This temporary defeat was speedily fol- 
lowed by Marc Antony's ruin, for he saw his disheartened men 
desert him in large numbers, and go over to his enemy ; then 
erroneously believing that Cleopatra had betrayed him, Marc 
Antony broke out in wild fury against her. Cleopatra, alarmed 
at his vehemence, fled to a magnificent tomb she had built as 



CLEOPATRA. 189 

a refuge near the temple of Isis, and caused a report to be 
spread that she was dead. Antony, on hearing this, and re- 
proaching himself for his cruelty towards his mistress, threw 
himself on his sword, inflicting a mortal wound. He died in 
Cleopatra's arms, who, hearing of his rashness, caused the dying 
Roman to be conveyed to the tomb, where she sought to bind 
up his wound, covering him with passionate caresses. With all 
the encouraging words he could frame to cheer and to encour- 
age, Marc Antony sought to sustain her, and with his last 
breath continued to speak lovingly; Cleopatra and her interests 
occupying his sole thoughts. 

It was the long-cherished hope of Octavius Caesar that Cleo- 
patra should grace his triumph on his entrance into Rome, and 
that the immense treasures of gold, emeralds, pearls, ivory, and 
precious goods, which the Queen had collected in the tomb, 
should be secured. He therefore sent Proculeius, his trusted 
lieutenant (in whose character Marc Antony had, on dying, ex- 
pressed confidence to Cleopatra) . Failing during the interview 
to inspire Cleopatra with confidence in the professions of Octa- 
vius, Proculeius finally secured entrance into the tomb by a 
ladder through a high window. Cleopatra endeavored to kill 
herself with a dagger, but was disarmed, and carefully guarded, 
lest she should take her own life. Octavius allowed the Queen 
to give a magnificent burial to Marc Antony's remains, permit- 
ting her to lavish upon his ashes great masses of her most pre- 
cious goods. Octavius did this as a matter of policy as well as 
of feeling, many of the Roman officers and soldiers pitying 
Marc Antony's fate. The passionate sorrow of Cleopatra in- 
duced her to attempt starving herself, but Octavius prevented 
this by threatening her with an ignominious death should she 
persist. Cleopatra, fully realizing, during her long interview 
with Octavius, that his cold nature would be impassive against 
all the wiles of her witchery, and that his promises of protection 



190 CLEOPATRA. 

were merely illusory, determined to disappoint, by suicide, Oc- 
tavius' projected triumph. Paying first a long visit to the 
tomb of Marc Antony, and calling on him pathetically to wit- 
ness her intended immolation through her love for him, she 
had on her return, while at dinner, a basket of figs brought to 
her, under the leaves of which an asp was concealed. Cleo- 
patra and her maids, who were devoted to their mistress, then 
retired — the Queen pretending she desired to bathe. The 
finale to the tragedy is again related in the words of Plutarch : 
" And when they opened the doors, they found Cleopatra stark 
dead, lying on a bed of gold, attired and arrayed in her royal 
robes, and one of her two women, which was called Iras, dead 
at her feet ; and her other woman, called Charmian, half dead. 
Now Caesar, though he was marvellous sorry for the death of 
Cleopatra, yet he wondered at her noble mind and courage, and 
therefore commanded that she should be nobly buried and laid 
by Antonius. Cleopatra died, being eight and thirty years old, 
after she had reigned two-and-twenty years, and governed about 
fourteen of them with Antonius." 

Cleopatra and her love for Marc Antony ; her magnificence, 
beauty, coquetry, and tragic end, have been the endless themes 
of historian, poet, and painter for ages, and will continue to be 
through the centuries yet to come. Horace and Enobarbus, 
among many ancient writers, and in later times Dryden and 
Leigh Hunt, have descanted upon Egypt's famous ruler ; while 
Shakespeare, in his splendid tragedy of " Antony and Cleo- 
patra," depicts to our mind's eye, as no one else has done, 

" That southern beam, 
The laughing queen, that caught the world's great hands." 



ZENOBIA. 



Tadmor in the Wilderness, called Palmyra by the Greeks and 
Romans, originally founded by Solomon in a fertile oasis of the 
Arabian desert, and whose site was surrounded for many days' 
journey by barren, solitary wilds, seems to have served, in the 
earliest days of commerce, as a commercial station between Tyre 
and Babylon, and by its springs of fresh water, its groves of 
palm trees and its fruitful soil, to have become the halting-place 
of caravans and the resort of traders and spice merchants. It 
was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and rebuilt during a period 
when the historians and chroniclers had withdrawn their atten- 
tion from this desert quarter of the globe. Pliny is the first 
writer who mentions it after its destruction by the Jews, and says 
of it, that "it is remarkable for situation, a rich soil and plea- 
sant streams. It is surrounded on all sides by a vast sandy 
desert, which totally separates it from the rest of the world ; it 
has preserved its independence between the two great empires 
of Rome and Parthia, whose first care, when at war, is to en- 
gage it in their interest." The city thus restored, and thus 
neutral, soon rose to opulence, till, upon the conquest of Central 
Asia by Trajan, it submitted to the Roman yoke, and, though 

a colony in name, remained for one hundred and fifty years 

191 



192 ZENOBIA. 

in peaceful possession of many of the advantages it had enjoyed 
while a republic. The few Palmyrenian inscriptions which are 
now extant, seem to indicate that the magnificent temples, por- 
ticoes, and colonnades of Corinthian and Ionic architecture, 
whose ruins form at this day so magnificent and yet melan- 
choly a spectacle, were built during this period of Roman sway. 
In the year 260 of our era, the Emperor Valerian, dreading 
the effects of Persian ambition, crossed the Euphrates and 
attacked Sapor, the Persian king ; encountering an army near 
the walls of Edessa, he was vanquished and taken prisoner. At 
this juncture, Odenatus, an opulent senator of Palmyra, who had 
so far turned the waning fortunes of the Romans in the East to 
his own account, as to have obtained the balance of power 
between Rome and Persia, was led by an act of insolence on 
the part of Sapor warmly to espouse the quarrel of the Romans. 
Upon the submission of Valerian, he had sent the conqueror a 
present of a well-laden train of camels, accompanied by a 
respectful though by no means servile epistle. " Who is this 
Odenatus V 3 asked Sapor, at the same time ordering the rare 
gifts with vhich the camels were burdened to be thrown into the 
Euphrates — "who is he, that he thus presumes to write to his 
lord ? Vi he entertains a hope of mitigating his punishment, let 
him fall prostrate before the foot of our throne, with his hands 
bound behind his back. Should he hesitate, swift destruction 
shall be poured on his head, on his whole race, and on his 
country.' 7 Odenatus, naturally indignant, collected an army 
from the villages and tents of the desert, joined the scattered 
remnants of the Roman legions in Syria, and so harassed the 
retreat of the Persian host, that on subsequently joining battle 
with Sapor, he easily routed him, and advanced even as far as 
the gates of Ctesiphon, his capital. Valerian died in chains, 
and his son Gallienus succeeded to the throne. He acknow- 
ledged the debt due to Odenatus, and with the consent of the 
senate, and amid the applause of the people, bestowed upon 



ZEN OBI A. 193 

him the associate title of Augustus. The government of the 
East seemed to be thus tacitly conferred upon Odenatus, and 
"for a while," says Gibbon, "Palmyra stood forth the rival of 
Rome : but the competition was fatal, and ages of prosperity 
were sacrificed to a moment of glory." 

Previous to his elevation, Odenatus had married a beautiful 
and accomplished woman, Zenobia Septimia. Of this remarka- 
ble heroine the historian just quoted thus speaks, upon the 
authority of Trebellius Pollio, who was contemporary with her : 
"Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women who 
have sustained with glory the weight of empire ; nor is our 
own age destitute of such distinguished characters ; but if we 
except the doubtful achievements of Semiramis, Zenobia is, per- 
haps, the only female whose superior genius broke through the 
servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and man- 
ners of Asia. She claimed her descent from the Macedonian 
kings of Egypt, equalled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra, and 
far surpassed that princess in chastity and valor. Zenobia was 
esteemed the most lovely as well as. the most heroic of her sex. 
She was of a dark complexion — for in speaking of a lady these 
trifles become important — her teeth were of a pearly whiteness, 
and her large black eyes sparkled with uncommon fire, tempered 
by the most attractive sweetness. Her voice was strong and 
harmonious. Her manly understanding was strengthened and 
adorned by study ; she was not ignorant of the Latin tongue, 
but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the Syriac, and the 
Egyptian languages. She had drawn up for her own use an 
epitome of Oriental history, and familiarly compared the beauties 
of Homer and Plato, under the tuition of the sublime Longinus." 

Zenobia had accompanied Odenatus in his expedition against 
the Persian monarch, and was with him at the gates of Ctesi- 
phon. To her fortitude and prudence is attributed a large 
portion of this and of his subsequent successes. She accustomed 
herself to fatigue, usually rode on horseback clad in military 



194 ZEN OB I A. 

attire, and sometimes led the troops on foot. She often har- 
angued the army, her fine head surmounted by a helmet of fur, her 
breast covered with a coat of mail, and her arms left bare, that 
she might more freely use them in gesture. At such moments, 
her severe beauty reminded the spectator of the Minerva of the 
Greeks. In peace, she attended Odenatus in his favorite pursuit 
of hunting, and hurled the javelin at the lions and panthers 
of the desert with as much courage and the same skill as he. 
When Odenatus became the colleague of the Roman Augustus, 
Zenobia suffered her ambition to outrun her judgment, and she 
looked forward to the moment when, arrayed in the imperial 
purple, she should dwell in the palace of the Ccesars. 

In the year 264, Odenatus resolved upon a second expedition 
against the Persians ; in this he was so successful that he sent 
captive to Koine a large number of generals and satraps, whom 
the profligate Gallienus forced to appear at the inglorious 
triumph which, at his own instigation, was decreed him by 
the senate. Odenatus reached a second time the walls of 
Ctesiphon, but was compelled hurriedly to raise the siege, 
that he might hasten to repel an invasion of the Goths, who 
had already covered the Black Sea with their vessels and Asia 
Minor with their tents. After a successful excursion against 
these formidable foes, he returned to Emesa in Syria. Here, 
in the year 267, he fell a victim to assassination, his nephew, 
Ma3onius, in revenge for a slight punishment inflicted upon him 
by Odenatus, having slain him at a banquet, assuming, imme- 
diately afterwards, his title and his authority. A son of 
Odenatus by a previous marriage, Ouorodes or Herod, perished 
with him. Zenobia avenged her husband's massacre by ordering 
her soldiers to put the assassin Mseonius to death — a command 
which they eagerly obeyed, as his brief possession of the imperial 
honors had disgusted the camp with him and his pretensions. 

A trivial circumstance and an ingenious train of reasoning, 
have forced upon the minds of several historians the suspicion 



ZEN OBI A. 105 

that Zenobia was herself not innocent of the death of her hus- 
band. Their argument is as follows : Odenatus had a son by a 
previous marriage, Herod ; Zenobia, a widow at the time of her 
union with Odenatus, also had a son, Yabalatus ; two sons, 
Timolaiis and Herennianus, and several daughters were the off- 
spring of both. Odenatus manifested an extreme partiality for 
Hei od, whom he intended for his successor, and who is described 
as a luxurious and worthless prince, and upon whose blind 
indulgence by his father, Zenobia is said to have looked with 
jealous eyes. Her ambition for herself, and her aspirations for 
her own sons might naturally awaken in her mind the desire to 
remove the obstacles in her path. She might thus have incited 
Mseonius to a sanguinary retaliation for the slight offence he had 
received, recommending him even to assume the purple upon 
Odenatus 7 death. When she in her turn avenged her husband's 
murder by that of Maeonius, she in reality reaped the reward of 
her previous crime, while merely appearing to chastise its apparent 
perpetrator. In repelling the charge involved in this plausible 
hypothesis, it will be merely necessary to state that it is based 
upon conjecture alone, no accusation or hint to such an effect 
being found in any of the writers contemporary with Zenobia. 
It is a singular fact, that nearly all the French historians and 
biographers are disposed to attach credence to the story ; while 
the English, with equal unanimity, reject it. Gibbon treats the 
subject with contempt, omitting all mention of it in the text, 
and merely stating in a note that "some very unjust suspicions 
have been cast upon Zenobia, as if she was accessory to her 
husband's death." 

Zenobia at once declared her son Yabalatus emperor, and 
reigned as regent in his stead. The late friends and advisers 
of Odenatus contributed by their support and their counsels to 
consolidate her infant authority. The Roman emperor Gal- 
lienus did not see fit to recognize her as the successor of Odena- 
tus, nor to acknowledge her claim to a title which, he maintained 



196 ZENOBIA. 

had been awarded to her husband as a distinction altogether per- 
sonal, and in no wise hereditary. He even sent a general against 
her, with instructions to humble her insufferable pride ; but the 
high-spirited widow, taking the field in person against him, drove 
him in confusion back into Europe. Her dominions now extended 
from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean, and from the Arabian 
deserts to the heart of Asia Minor. Arabia, Armenia and Persia 
offered their friendship and solicited her alliance. She even 
acquired some authority, though how much is not exactly known, 
over the fertile districts of Lower Egypt, during the reign of 
Flavius Claudius, the successor of Gallienus ; thus recovering 
what she claimed as her inheritance as the descendant of Cleo- 
patra. 

The heterogeneous elements of which Zenobia's empire was 
composed, compelled her to adopt an inconstant and ambiguous 
policy, suiting her conduct to the time and place. She sought 
to rule the Greeks by love, the barbarians by fear : with the 
one she used conciliation ; with the other, intimidation. She 
appeared to have no determinate character, but was clement or 
cruel according to the circumstances under which she acted. 
She exacted from her subjects that species of worship which the 
Persians paid to the successors of Cyrus ; but she bestowed 
upon her sons a Latin education, and harangued her troops 
after the fashion of the Roman generals. Though to all outward 
appearance a Jewess in religion, and constantly erecting syna- 
gogues for the propagation of her faith, she never interfered 
with the liberty of conscience, and afforded equal toleration to 
both Jew and Gentile. No Christian church was closed during 
her reign. In this career of administrative double-dealing — a 
course which often brought perplexity into her councils, and at 
best begot but a precarious security — Zenobia manifested judg- 
ment, coolness and address. Her authority and prestige waned 
from the moment when, emboldened by the indifference with 
which Claudius permitted her to assume the title of Queen of the 



ZENOBIA. 107 

Bast, she aspired to the creation of an independent and even 
rival monarchy. 

Aurelian, a soldier of fortune, and a child of a priestess of 
the Sun, whose martial tastes and prowess in the field obtained 
for him the title of Aurelian Sword-in-hand, now, in the year 
270, succeeded Claudius upon the throne of Rome. He found 
the empire dismembered, and its remote provinces either in 
open disaffection or reluctant submission. Two women were the 
foes and rivals of Rome. Gaul, Spain and Britain acknowledged 
the sway of Yictoria, the Mother of the Camps ; while Syria, 
Asia Minor and Egypt had insensibly sunk into the lap of Zeno- 
bia, the Queen of the East. Aurelian set himself the task of 
reuniting these scattered fragments. He marched into Gaul, 
and by the bloody battle of Chalons, quenched the spirit of 
resistance in the north. He returned hastily to Italy, recalled 
by an invasion of the Yandals. Partly by battle and partly by 
treaty, he obtained the vantage ground of his foes, and the bar- 
barian legions hurriedly repassed the Rhine. The north and 
the west having been thus gathered again into the fold, Aurelian 
turned his arms against the east and the brilliant Palmyrenian. 

It was in the second year of his reign that Aurelian started 
upon his march from Rome to Palmyra. On his way through 
Illyria, Dalmatia and Thrace, he easily eradicated the seeds of 
insubordination which Zenobia had planted in the soil ; he passed 
through Byzantium, into Bithynia and Galatia, without encoun- 
tering resistance ; but in Cappadocia, the city of Tyana closed 
its gates at his approach. In his rage at this interruption, 
Aurelian swore that "he would not leave a dog alive j" but 
when, through the perfidy of a Tyanian, he obtained bloodless 
possession of the city, and the soldiers clamored for their pro- 
mised plunder, he replied, "I promised no such thing; I pro- 
mised you the dogs ; kill them all, and leave not one alive !" 

The first resistance he encountered from Zenobia awaited 
him near Antioch, upon the Syrian frontier. Zabdas, who had 



98 ZENOBIA. 



distinguished himself in the Egyptian campaign, was the com 
mander of the army, though Zenobia encouraged her troops by 
her presence. A battle was fought without the walls of the city, 
in which the Palmyrenians were signally discomfited. Zabdas, 
fearing that the people of Antioch would not admit him if aware 
of his defeat, arrayed one of his officers in purple garments, and 
announcing him as the vanquished Aurelian, succeeded in pene- 
trating into the city. During the night, he fled with Zenobia 
and the remnants of the army to Emesa, where the dauntless 
queen collected and hastily equipped a second and a more effi- 
cient force. The conflict which ensued was even more disastrous 
to her arms than the battle of Antioch ; her army was cut to 
pieces ; and the Emesans, at heart preferring the Roman domi- 
nation to that of Palmyra, opened their gates to Aurelian. 
Zenobia withdrew to her capital, and unable to collect a third 
army, she shut herself up within the walls, resolved and pre- 
pared to sustain a siege, and declaring that the last moment of 
her reign should be the last of her life. 

Aurelian advanced over the burning sands which lay between 
Emesa and Palmyra, sorely harassed by hordes of Arabs, whose 
attack was invariably a surprise, and whose retreat was as regu- 
larly a marvel. At last, he arrived before Palmyra, # and his 
legions commenced the siege. The resistance was heroic, and 
for a long time successful. Aurelian himself was wounded by 
a dart, while personally directing the combat. In a letter of 
self-justification, written by him at this period, he says: "The 
Roman people speak with contempt of the war which I am 
waging against a woman. They are ignorant of the character 
and of the resources of Zenobia. It is impossible to enumerate 
her warlike preparations of stones, of arrows, and of every 
species of missile weapons. Every part of the walls is provided 
with two or three balistae, and artificial fires are thrown from 
her military engines. The fear of punishment has armed her 
with a desperate courage. Yet, still I trust in the protecting 










t 



ZENDBIA. 



ZEN OB I A. 19 J 

deities of Rome, who have hitherto been favorable to all my 
undertakings." Seeming, however, to distrust the continuance 
of this divine favor, Aurelian resolved to mingle negotiation 
with faith, and wrote to Zenobia, offering her the terms of an 
advantageous surrender : for herself, a tranquil life in a resi- 
dence which the senate should select ; and for her people, the 
continued enjoyment of the rights they then stood possessed of. 
Her reply is memorable. It was thus couched : 

" Zenobia, Queen of the East, to Aurelian Augustus : 

" Never was such an unreasonable demand proposed, or such 
rigorous terms offered by any but yourself ! By valor alone, by 
the force of arms only, can wars be brought to a close. You 
imperiously command me to surrender, as if you were ignorant 
that Cleopatra chose rather to die with the title of Queen than 
to live in servitude, however tolerable it might be rendered. 
We are awaiting succor from Persia : the Saracens and the 
Armenians are arming in our cause. The banditti of the desert 
have defeated your army, Aurelian! Judge, then, what our 
strength will be when our allies have joined us. You wilJ be 
compelled to abate that pride with which, as if you were already 
conqueror, you command me to become your captive." 

Aurelian read this haughty dispatch with cheeks burning 

with indignation. He pressed the siege with redoubled ardor : 

he intercepted the scanty reinforcements sent by the king of 

Persia, and either by battle or bribery prevented them from 

proceeding to Zenobia's relief. He won over the Saracens and 

Armenians to his cause. Probus, the general whom he had 

detached for the conquest of Egypt, returned at this juncture, 

and added his troops, fresh from victory and flushed by success, 

to Aurelian's vigilant camp. The Palmyrenians fought with 

courage, and at first to great advantage ; but famine at length 

invaded the beleaguered city. Zenobia resolved to proceed in 
*3 



200 ZEN OB I A. 

person to the king of Persia, to implore his assistance m this 
extremity. She mounted her fleetest dromedary, and between 
sunrise and sunset, accomplished the sixty miles which lay 
between Palmyra and the Euphrates. She had reached the 
boat which was to carry her across the river, when a detach- 
ment of Aurelian's light cavalry overtook her and carried her 
back a captive. She was brought before Aurelian, who sternly 
asked her how she had dared to rise against the Emperor of 
Rome. "Because," she replied, somewhat descending from the 
lofty key in which her late letter to the emperor was indited, 
11 because I disdained to consider as Roman emperors an Aureo- 
lus or a Grallienus. You alone I recognize as my emperor 
and my sovereign." Palmyra surrendered upon the capture of 
its queen, and its citizens implored the clemency of the victor. 
Aurelian behaved with unexpected magnanimity, sparing their 
lives and giving them their liberty, appropriating, however, as 
spoils of war, their gold, silver and precious stones ; their arms, 
horses and camels. 

Aurelian now retired to Emesa, taking with him Zenobia and 
her counsellors. There he instituted a tribunal, over which he 
himself presided, and submitted to its deliberation the fate of the 
queen and her adherents, Longinus, Otho, Seleucus, Nicanor. 
The soldiers, indifferent to the subordinates, clamorously de- 
manded the execution of the fair and haughty rebel. Gibbon, 
quoting the historian Zosimus, says, upon the much disputed 
point of Zenobia's behavior at this juncture : " Her courage de- 
serted her in the hour of trial ; she trembled at the angry 
clamors of the soldiers, forgot the generous despair of Cleopatra, 
which she had proposed as her model, and ignominiously pur- 
chased life by the sacrifice of her fame and her friends. It was 
to their counsels, which governed the weakness of her sex, that 
she imputed the guilt of her obstinate resistance ; it was on their 
heads that she directed the vengeance of the cruel Aurelian." 
From other authorities, and especially from Yopiscus, we gather 



ZENOBIA. 201 

a different statement of the motives which led Aurelian to spare 
his captive's life. If he had already been exposed, as the letter 
we have cited shows, to the sarcasm of the Romans for his pro- 
longed contest with a woman, the most ordinary prudence would 
suggest the danger of giving his caustic subjects fresh mat- 
ter for ridicule by putting a defenceless woman to death. He 
might, as we are assured he did, consider the Roman sceptre 
under obligations to Zenobia for her repulse and pursuit of 
Sapor, in the earlier days of her reign. He might desire to ex- 
hibit his revolted but now submissive foe to the senate and 
the people. He might wish to reserve her to grace the triumph 
with which he hoped to celebrate his conquests. It is not neces- 
sary to resort to the hypothesis that Zenobia denounced her 
counsellors, in order to justify and account for their death and 
her own escape. Such would be their lot by the fortunes of war ; 
their counsels had undoubtedly encouraged their queen in her 
resistance, and the vicissitudes of fate now summoned them to 
pay the penalty and forfeiture of their acts. It is difficult to 
suppose that Zenobia could have saved her own life, had Aure- 
lian resolved to take it, by imputing to Longinus and his col- 
leagues a responsibility of which they were already convicted 
by the very position they held. Longinus suffered with the 
stoicism of which he had given so many proofs, " pitying his un- 
happy mistress and bestowing comfort on his afflicted friends." 
A number of his associates perished with him, others were re- 
served to be thrown into the sea, as the army recrossed the 
Thracian Bosphorus. 

While Aurelian was on his homeward march, he learned that 
Palmyra had again raised the standard of revolt, by putting to 
the sword the garrison of six hundred men in whose possession 
he had left it. He hastened back, and devoted the hapless city 
to sack, fire and pillage. Zenobia's capital was levelled to the 
dust ; the Araks who now infest the waste upon which it stood 
aave built their mud and straw- thatched hovels beneath the 



202 ZEN OBI A. 

shadow of one single edifice — a temple of the Sun. The vil- 
lage of Tadnior in the Wilderness numbers hardly a dozen 
families, who feed their goats and cultivate their starveling gar- 
dens among the most majestic ruins which antiquity has be- 
queathed us. 

Aurelian's successes, which had dazzled the people, now well- 
nigh blinded him. He had commenced his reign, three years 
before, with the modesty and simplicity of a private citizen, 
and had enforced his domestic sumptuary laws with such rigor 
as to deny his wife and daughter the indulgence of silken robes. 
Now that he had restored peace and order to the Roman 
world, and had reunited the fragments of a dismembered empire, 
he organized in his owm honor a triumphal procession at Rome, 
which, in respect of pomp and barbarous magnificence, has never 
to this day been equalled. The cortege was opened by the im- 
perial menagerie, collected by Aurelian from every climate he 
had visited. Twenty elephants led the way, followed by four 
royal tigers and two hundred wild animals from Libya and Pales- 
tine — lions, leopards, deer, camels, dromedaries ; these he distri- 
buted the next day among his friends, that the public treasury 
might not be taxed for their maintenance. Sixteen hundred 
gladiators followed, prepared for the sanguinary sports of the 
amphitheatre. Then came delegations of captives from every 
conquered tribe — Goths, Vandals, Syrians, Saracens, Franks, 
Gauls, Egyptians. Their hands were bound and they marched 
with downcast eyes. The spoils of the world came next, artfully 
arranged upon gilded wagons ; the jewels and scented woods of 
India, the wealth and treasures of Persia, the ivor}^ and gold of 
Ethiopia, the quaint and costly productions of China, the magni- 
ficent plate and sculptures of Palmyra — the rifled contents of the 
palace of Zenobia. Then followed the ambassadors from 
friendly powers, gorgeously arrayed in their national costumes ; 
then a band of youths picturesquely habited, bearing upon silken 
cushions a number of golden crowns — the tribute of submissive 



ZEN OB I A 203 

cities. Ten women of masculine proportions and clad in male 
attire, who had been captured while fighting by their husbands' 
sides on the shores of the Danube, next attracted the gaze of the 
admiring throng. At last, came the two illustrious captives, the 
Gallic emperor, Tetricus, and the Syrian queen, Zenobia. Both 
proceeded on foot, Zenobia being closely followed by the chariot 
she had built to grace her own triumph, in the very streets where 
she was now led a bound and sullen prisoner. The barbarous 
monarch had caused her to be decked with her ornaments 
and jewels till she bent beneath their weight. The massive 
chains and golden fetters which encircled her neck, were sup- 
ported by slaves who walked beside her. The populace mur- 
mured their admiration and their pity as she passed. From 
morn till night she toiled beneath an Italian midsummer sun. 
The gorgeous war-chariot of Odenatus followed Zenobia's tri- 
umphal car, together with that of Sapor II., the Persian monarch. 
Aurelian — seated in a chariot taken from a Gothic king and 
drawn by stags — the senate, the principal citizens, and the chiefs 
of the army, closed this memorable procession. 

We cannot refrain from quoting here a passage from an ima- 
ginative description of the Triumph of Aurelian, in which the 
legitimate license of the romancer is happily blended with 
the research of the historian : " You can imagine, Fausta," 
says the writer, " better than I can describe them, my sensa- 
tions, when I saw our beloved friend, her whom I had seen 
treated never otherwise than as a sovereign queen, and with 
all the imposing pomp of the Persian ceremonial — now on 
foot and exposed to the rude gaze of the Roman populace — 
toiling beneath the rays of a hot sun, and the weight of jewels 
such as both for richness and beauty were never before seen in 
Rome — and of chains of gold, which, first passing around her 
neck and arms, were then borne up by attendant slaves. I could 
have wept to see her so — yes, and did. My impulse was to break 
through the crowd and support her almost fainting form — but 



20i ZENOBIA. 

I well knew that my life would answer for the rashness on the 
spot. I could only, therefore, like the rest, wonder and gaze. 
And never did she seem to me, not even in the midst of her own 
court, to blaze forth with such transcendent beauty — yet touched 
with grief. Her look was not that of dejection, of one who 
was broken and crushed by misfortune — there was no blush of 
shame. It was rather one of profound, heal t-breaking melan- 
choly. Her full eyes looked as if privacy only were wanted 
for them to overflow with tears. Her gaze was fixed on va- 
cancy, or else cast toward the ground. She seemed like one 
unobservant of all around her, and buried in thoughts to 
which all else were strangers and had nothing in common with. 
They were in Palmyra, and with her slaughtered multitudes. 
Yet, though she wept not, others did ; and we could see all 
along, wherever she moved, the Roman hardness yielding to 
pity, and melting away before the all-subduing presence of this 
wonderful woman. The most touching phrases of compassion 
fell constantly upon my ear. And ever and anon, as in the 
road there would happen some rough or damp place, the kind 
souls would throw clown upon it whatever of their garments they 
could quickest divest themselves of, that those feet, little used to 
such encounters, might receive no harm. And as when other 
parts of the procession were passing by, shouts of triumph and 
vulgar joy frequently arose from the motley crowds, yet when 
Zenobia ' appeared, a death-like silence prevailed, or it was 
interrupted only by exclamations of admiration or pity, or of 
indignation at Aurelian for so using her. But this happened 
not long. For when the emperor's pride had been sufficiently 
gratified, and just there where he came over against the steps 
of the capitol, he himself, crowned as he was with the diadem 
of universal empire, descended from his chariot, and unlocking 
the chains of gold that bound the limbs of the queen, led and 
placed her in her own chariot — that chariot in which she had 
fondly hoped herself to enter Rome in triumph. Upon this, 



ZENOBIA. 205 

the air was rent with the grateful acclamations of the countless 
multitudes. The queen's countenance brightened for a moment 
as if with the expressive sentiment, 'The gods bless you V 
and was then buried in the folds of her robe. And when, after 
the lapse of many minutes, it was again raised and turned 
towards the people, every one might see that tears, burning 
hot, had coursed her cheeks, and relieved a heart which else 
might well have burst with its restrained emotion." 1 

The week succeeding the triumph was devoted to games, 
theatres, and gladiatorial exhibitions. Hundreds of victims 
perished in the arena and in the sea-fights in Domitian's pond. 
The news soon reached the public that Zenobia was to be 
leniently dealt with. . Early in the week, Aurelian made her a 
present of his villa at Tibur, and sent his own chariot to convey 
her thither. She bore her fall with equanimity, living tranquilly 
in her forced retirement, and reminding the citizens of Cornelia, 
after the death of Tiberius and Caius. She became, to all intents, 
a Roman matron ; her two daughters married into Roman fami- 
lies, although a romantic embellishment of her story makes the 
eldest, Livia, Aurelian's wife and Empress of Rome, and Zenobia 
herself again a mother by a union with an illustrious Roman 
senator. From whichever source her descendants sprang, it is 
certain that her race was perpetuated to the fifth century, 
beyond which the genealogists have not been able to trace it. 
Her son Yabalatus was made king of a small province in 
Armenia, and his reign is commemorated by medals still in 
existence. Timolaus and Herennianus are supposed to have 
been dead before Aurelian's conquests. 

The modern traveller can hardly visit Tibur, now Tivoli, 
some twenty miles from Rome, without experiencing the liveliest 
emotions. If a classical scholar, he will remember it as the 
retreat of Horace and as the seat of the oracle of Faunus ; if an 

1 "Ware's Zenobia. 



20G ZEN OBI A. 

antiquarian, he will visit with interest the ruins of the villa of 
Maecenas and of the Tiburtine Sibyl ; if a lover of the picturesque 
in nature, he will gaze with rapture upon the charming Casca- 
telle ; upon the falls of the headlong Anio, and the echoing 
srrotto of the Syrens ; upon the dense foliage of the vine-clasped 
olives which clothe the precipitous hill-side ; and if a reflecting 
student of history, he will ponder upon the impressive lesson he 
may read in a spot peculiarly connected with human vicissitude 
— the scene of the crumbling splendors of Adrian, the life-long 
captivity of Syphax and the golden exile of Zenobia. 



BEATRICE. 



Beatrice Portinari, the heiress of an illustrious house of 
Florence, was born in the year 1266, and died at the age of 
twenty-four. In her short and blighted life, she achieved nothing 
which, were we to adopt a material standard of criticism, would 
entitle her to a place among queens, heroines and martyrs. , She 
neither ruled a kingdom, nor fought a battle, nor enslaved a peo- 
ple. By her beauty she inspired a poet ; by her purity, her spi- 
ritual loveliness, her "divine weakness," she so wrought upon 
the soul and so exalted the intellect of one who loved her, that, 
abandoning a licentious and erratic career, and applying himself 
to study and contemplation, he became the Christian Homer 
That the Divina Commedia was directly due to the sway still ex- 
ercised over him by the hallowed memory of Beatrice — for she 
was long since dead — we have Dante's own authority for assert- 
ing. She to whom the world owes the most magnificent poem in 
the Italian language, and one of the most sublime efforts of hu- 
man genius, cannot be out of place iu a gallery which claims to 
recognize female influence as well as female achievement. 

Of Dante's love for Beatrice, the effects of that love upon his 
life are sufficient evidence ; we are not told, and we have no 

means of knowing, whether she returned his affection. He first 

207 



208 BEATRICE. 

saw her, when in her ninth year, at a May-day festival. She at 
any rate married another, one Simone de ? Bardi, and while yet in 
the prime of her youth, overcome with grief at the death of her 
father, she died in the year 1290. Dante was married soon after- 
wards to a lady named Gemma de' Donati, with whom he lived 
unhappily. " Oh ! inconceivable torture,' 7 exclaims Boccaccio, 
"to live, and converse, and grow old, and die with such a jealous 
creature !" Four years later, he composed his Vita Nuova — a 
series of canzoni or sonnets interspersed with prose, in which 
he records the joys and sorrows of his youth, and speaks of the 
change wrought in him by his passion, and of the "new life" 
which it induced him to commence. From this we obtain a pic- 
ture of the moral and spiritual perfections of his " gloriosa e gen- 
tillissima donna." 

11 Whenever she appeared before my sight," he says, " all ha- 
tred at once departed from my heart, and in its stead there was 
kindled such a flame of charity, that I willingly pardoned all who 

had offended me This gentlest of ladies gained such favor 

with every one, that when she walked through the streets, peo- 
ple would run to catch a glimpse of her, whence a marvelous 
gladness seized my heart ; and when she drew near to any one, 
so much gentleness would enter into his heart that he would not 
dare to lift up his eyes to answer her greeting ; and of this many, 
as having witnessed it, would bear testimony to those that would 
not believe it. But she, crowned and clothed in humility, walked 
on, showing no pride of what she saw and heard. And many 
would say, after she had passed by, ' This is no woman, surely, 
but one of the most beautiful of angels.' And others would say, 
' She is a miracle ; blessed be the Lord, who worketh so mar- 
velously !' " 

The Yita NuDva concludes with the following words : " After 
this, I beheld a vision, in which I saw sights that caused me to 
resolve to cease writing of my beloved Beatrice, until I can cele- 
brate her more worthily ; which, that I may do, I devote my 



BEATRICE. 209 

whole soul to study, as she well knoweth. In so much that if it 
should be His pleasure, for whom all things live, that my life 
should be spared for a few years upon this earth, I hope to sing 
of her what never yet was sung or said of any woman. And I 
pray Him who is the father of goodness to suffer my soul to be- 
hold the bliss of its lady, who now, abiding in glory, looketh upon 
the face of Him who is blessed forever, world without end." 

It is evident from these lines that Dante had, at this early 
period — he was not yet thirty years of age — conceived the idea 
which he afterwards elaborated in the master-piece of his mature 
life. " The vow which the youth had made," we quote from the 
Christian Examiner, "the man performed. Never, by pen of 
mortal writer, has woman been more glorified than Beatrice was 
by Dante. Never has love inspired its poet with a purer and 
loftier ideal ; never has earthly beauty enjoyed a more radiant 
apotheosis. She who had been, while living, the delight of his 
youthful eyes, became when dead, the guiding-star of his spirit, 
the comforter and enlightener of his soul, the Jacob's ladder of 
his holiest aspirations. All representations of love and woman be- 
fore Dante appear earthly and sensual by the side of his. Noble 
and glorious as were some of the creations of Greek and Roman 
poets, here is something 'above all Greek, above all Roman fame.' 
We may admire, we may pity, we may love, Andromache, Pen- 
elope, Iphigenia, Electra, Antigone, but here we put off our shoes 
from our feet, and humbly bow in profound veneration." 

The Divina Commedia is a highly wrought allegorical poem, 
consisting of a Vision of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Through 
these regions the poet makes an imaginary journey, conducted by 
various guides. Having wandered from the direct path of life, 
and finding himself alone in a savage and trackless forest, he 
is accosted by the shade of Yirgil, who had always been the 
object of his admiration. Yirgil explains to him that he has 
descended to earth, at the request of Beatrice, to guide him upon 
his way. Thus reassured, the Tuscan poet follows his conductor 



210 BEATRICE. 

across the Acheron into the realms of Minos. He supposes, in 
the poem, that " when Lucifer fell from heaven, he struck the 
earth with such violence as to make a vast chasm, tunnel-shaped, 
quite down to the earth's centre, where he lies frozen in eternal 
ice. Down the sloping sides of this great tunnel sucks the 
groaning maelstrom of Dante's Inferno ; through whose various 
eddies and whirlpools the shuddering poet is hurried forward, 
amid the shrieking shipwrecked souls." Yirgil and Dante pass 
successively through the nine circles of Hell — the most appalling 
series of pictures ever conceived by the imagination of man. 

In the first, called Limbo, are the souls of the unbaptized 
and of the heathen philosophers ; no groans are heard, but the 
air is tremulous with sighs. In the second, the spirits of the 
incontinent are tossed to and fro in a whirlwind. In the third, 
the souls of gluttons lay howling under a ceaseless shower of hail- 
stones and black rain. In the fourth, the prodigal and the 
avaricious wage an eternal warfare by rolling huge weights 
against each other. In the fifth — the Stygian pool — the irascible 
are seen smiting each other, breathing beneath the filthy water 
and covering its surface with bubbles. In the sixth — the flaming 
city of Dis, with walls of heated iron — the souls of heretics lie 
buried in fiery graves. In the seventh are the violent, the 
unjust, and suicides, who are plunged into rivers of blood, 
or walk upon a sandy plain beneath a shower of fire. In the 
eighth, or gulf of Malabolge, are seducers, scourged by demons ; 
flatterers, wallowing in filth ; fortune-tellers, with their heads 
turned backwards ; peculators, seething in a lake of boiling 
pitch ; hypocrites, wearing gilded hoods of lead ; and alchemists 
and forgers rotting with disease. In the ninth circle are the 
souls of traitors, and Lucifer himself, imbedded in the frozen 
lake. All these horrible fancies are described with such awful 
minuteness, that we can hardly wonder at the belief which for 
a time prevailed among his countrymen, that Dante did actually 
descend into hell, and that the sallowness of his complexion and 



BEATRICE. 211 

the crispness of his beard were occasioned by his having ventured 
too near the fire. 

Lucifer, in his fall, had not only hollowed out the gulf of Hell, 
but had thrown up on the opposite side of the earth, a mountain, 
or cone, called Purgatory. In the sides of this cone were cut 
seven broad terraces, and upon them the seven mortal sins were 
purged away. Here despair gives way to hope, and as the poets 
clambered from one terrace to the other, ushered onward by 
angels, Dante beheld the milder, and yet agonizing expiation of 
those who had led lives of sin. He saw the proud, tottering 
under huge weights of stone ; the envious, with their eyelids 
sewed together with iron wire, and having piteous upturned 
faces, like blind beggars at the gates of churches ; the irascible, 
enveloped in suffocating smoke ; the avaricious, burying their 
faces in the dust ; gluttons emaciated by famine ; and the incon- 
tinent undergoing purgation by fire. 

Beyond, and above the seventh and last terrace, upon the 
summit of the mountain, stood the Terrestrial Paradise. Here, 
by the side of limpid waters, and under the shadow of eternal 
trees, the poet met Beatrice. Her approach is announced with 
all the splendid imagery of which his pen was capable. A 
soft melody breathes through the air, and the forest becomes 
brilliantly illuminated. A sacred procession passes by ; hymns, 
paraphrases for the most part from the psalms of David, are 
sung in his ravished ear ; a mystic chariot, surrounded by saints 
and angels, who strew the path with lilies, and containing the 
cherished object of his undying love, advances. Dante turns 
to Yirgil to express his rapture, but he finds himself alone, and 
weeps Then, for the first time, he hears the voice of Beatrice : 

"Dante! weep not that Yirgil leaves thee; nay 
Weep thou not yet; behooves thee feel the edge 
Of other sword, and thou shalt weep for that." 

Beatrice becomes Dante's guide through the ten heavens or 



212 BEATKICE. 

spheres of Paradise. She fixes her gaze upon the sun, till Dante 
is dazzled by his reflected light. They hear the harmony of 
the spheres. In the first sphere, or that of the Moon, the poet 
sees the happy souls of those who, having taken monastic vows 
on earth, were forced to violate them ; in the second, Mercury, 
dwell the spirits of those whom a thirst for glory moved to noble 
enterprises ; in the third, Venus, those who on earth were cele- 
brated for holy and legitimate love ; in the fourth, the Sun, dwell 
the doctors and fathers of the church ; the fifth, Mars, is the 
home of the heroic souls of the crusaders, who died fighting for 
the cross ; the sixth, Jupiter, is the abode of upright princes, 
who are arranged in the form of an eagle, in the centre of whose 
flaming eye sits King David ; in the seventh, Saturn, to which the 
poet and Beatrice ascend upon a ladder spangled with stars, dwell 
those who have passed their lives in holy contemplation. Dante 
here notices that the beauty of Beatrice is constantly becoming 
more radiant, and that it is as difficult to gaze upon her as upon 
the spheres themselves. The eighth heaven is that of the fixed 
stars ; they enter the constellation Gemini, and the poet turns his 
backward glance upon earth, a remote speck in the universe. In 
this heaven dwell the souls of Adam and the saints. Here the 
music is so sweet that, compared to it, Dante describes the most 
delightful earthly music as " a rent cloud, when it grates the 
thunder." 

In the ninth circle, all is light, and love, and joy. " A river 
of light flows through the centre, bordered with flowers of 
incredible beauty. From the river issue brilliant sparkles which 
fly amongst the flowers, where they seem like rubies chased in 
gold. By the desire of Beatrice, Dante drinks of this water, and 
his eyes being opened, he sees that the sparks are angels, and 
the flowers mortals. He beholds, in a vast circle of fight, more 
than a million of thrones, disposed like the leaves of a rose, 
where sit angels and the souls of just men made perfect. An 
innumerable host of celestial beings, with faces of flame and 



BEATRICE 213 

winf.s of gold, float over the eternal city. Here Beatrice leaves 
him and resumes her throne of light in the third circle from the 
higl est." 

The tenth and last heaven is the empyrean. Here the ven- 
erable St. Bernard becomes Dante's guide. Assisted by his 
prayers to the Virgin Mary that the poet may be enabled to 
contemplate, for an instant, the dazzling glory of the Divine 
Majesty, he is vouchsafed one fearful gaze upon the Great 
Mystery. Declaring his inability to describe what he has beheld, 
Dante lays down his pen and brings his poem to a close. He 
returns to earth, to his exile and his poverty, leaving his saint 
behind him, 

" Vested in colors of the living flame." 

They alone who can read Dante in the original, and can 
dispense with a paraphrase — for translation is impossible — can 
comprehend to what a degree the poet was wrought upon by the 
deathless memory of her who had inspired him. Never, indeed, 
was such a tribute paid by man to woman. He has bound her 
brow with laurel, and has made her name as immortal as his own. 



JOA-JST DAKO. 



Before entering upon the history of the transcendent hero 
ine whose name, restored to its correct orthography, we have 
given above, it is proper that we should state the reasons which 
have led us to take a step which, without such explanation, 
might seem unauthorized and gratuitous. 

The name " Joan of Arc" is the old English equivalent for 
Jeanne or Jehanne d'Arc : but d'Arc is, in the original French, 
an erroneous spelling of the proper name, Dare. However the 
mistake may have arisen — for it has never been traced to its 
source — it is certain that Joan could only have a right to the 
nobiliary particle de, either in consequence of the possession or 
the creation of a title in her family, or as a distinctive appellation, 
designating her as inhabiting the town, village, or estate of- Arc. 
Now, Joan's father was a humble ploughman, and no patrician 
blood ran in his veins ; he possessed no title ; and, moreover, 
his name is well known to have been Dare, without the apos- 
trophe. There is not, and never has been, in Lorraine, either 
town or estate of Arc, to which Joan could have owed the dis- 
tinction which tradition gives her. Her name, therefore, was 
Jeanne Dare, and in English Jane or Joan Dare. History seems 

disposed to perpetuate the error, in the two languages, though 
214 



JO A N D ARC. 215 

modern French authors take care, while falling in with the pre- 
cedent thus sanctified by time, to record the circumstances 
under which the distortion has taken place. The error is in 
French less worth correcting, as the omission of the apostrophe 
alters neither the sound nor the sense, in the spoken word ; but 
in English it is a very grievous mutilation of a name which man- 
kind should have been anxious to preserve intact. Had there 
been a " Joan of Arc," she would have been found in a baron's 
palace, not beneath a peasant's thatch. We may mention that 
the new " Biographie Universelle," which was published not long 
ago in Paris, by Didot Freres, gives the name as Dare, and repu- 
diates the usual and traditional spelling as at once corrupt and 
absurd. 

It was in the village of Domremy, between the hills of Lor- 
raine and the plains of Champagne, and not far from the town of 
Yaucouleurs, that Joan was born, probably in the year 1410. 
She was the third child of Jacques Dare, a laboring peasant, and 
of his wife Isabelle. The latter is usually designated in history 
as Isabelle Romee, but this surname was merely an epithet, sig- 
nifying that she, or some one of her immediate family, had made 
a pilgrimage to Rome. Joan's three brothers were named 
Jacquemin, Jacques, and Pierre. She herself, called Jeanne by 
one of her stepmothers, was always called Sibylle by the other. 
She had one sister, whose name has not been preserved. Her 
father and brothers labored in the fields or tended their flocks 
upon the hill-sides. Joan stayed at home with her mother and 
learned to sew and spin. She was never taught either to 
read or write. She went often to confession, and undertook, in 
humble imitation of the pilgrims whose devotion she admired, 
excursions to neighboring shrines and sanctuaries. She blushed 
when told that she was too often seen at prayer. She gave 
alms in proportion to her means, and tended the sick in the cot- 
tages of the village. 

As she grew older, the first manifestations of her singular 
14 



216 JOAN DAK 0. 

character were noticed with wonder by her parents. She with- 
drew from all society and sat contemplative apart, where she 
could gaze at the sky, the church spire, and the mountains. 
She betrayed the depth of her feelings less by abstraction from 
passing events than by the intensity with which she applied her- 
self to the few occupations which pleased her. She listened 
with rapture to sounds rendered soft by distance, and to the 
melody of bells ; she would spin heavy knots of worsted with 
which to bribe the sexton to prolong on summer evenings the 
harmonious chimes of the Angelus. She felt for the sufferings 
of animals, and was the good genius of worried cats and starving 
birds. Sexual love never touched her heart, and though often 
sought in marriage, she preferred the freedom of a single life. 
One of her lovers, unscrupulous in his passion, made affidavit be- 
fore a court of justice that she had promised him her hand, and 
asked that she might be compelled to execute her engagement. 
Joan appeared before the court at Toul and spurned the ca- 
lumny under oath. She was reserved for another destiny than 
that of a Domremy peasant's wife. 

Joan became at an early age strongly imbued with the local 
superstitions of the village. The deep forests of the Yosges 
touched the borders of Domremy ; and beneath a hoary beech 
called the Fairies' Tree was a fountain whose waters dispelled 
disease. Joan, with the children of the neighbors, danced round 
the tree, suspended garlands from its branches, and played with 
the rippling water-source. She gathered May-flowers upon its 
borders, and wove them into wreaths for the statue of Notre 
Dame. Her foster-sister even saw the fairies as they gambolled 
about their tree ; but Joan, even during her moments of ecstasy 
and inspiration, never allowed her fancy to take this form. The 
fairies were, nevertheless, believed to haunt the forest ; and the 
old cure* of Domremy, sharing the hostility of the church to the 
divinities of local tradition, went once a year to the fountain 
and with mass and holy water exorcised the hamadryads. 



JOAN DARC. 217 

Joan lived among these legends, in the midst of a super- 
stitious people, and in the heart of a romantic country. A pre- 
diction made by the Enchanter Merlin, so famous in Ariosto — 
one portion of which had already been accomplished — violently 
agitated the little community. It was to the effect that France 
would, ere long, be lost by an unnatural woman, and subse- 
quently saved by a young and innocent maiden. The present 
misfortunes of France, of which we shall have occasion to speak 
at length, were, it was thought by those interested in the pro- 
phecy, directly traceable to the infamous conduct of Isabeau cle 
Bavaria, the wife of King Charles VI., whose son, the dauphin, 
afterwards Charles VII., was affected almost to imbecility by the 
apprehension that he was not the king's son, and consequently 
unfit tc reign. The country was thus "lost by an unnatural 
woman," and the first half of the prediction had come to pass. 
The remainder was yet to be fulfilled, and among the supersti- 
tions of the Vosges, none was more rife than that of the salvation 
of France by an innocent maiden. Merlin's prophecy had been 
adapted by popular credulity or local prejudice to the circum- 
stances of each province, and the inhabitants of Lorraine were 
taught to believe that the heroine would arise in Lorraine, as, 
doubtless, in Brittany and Languedoc she was expected to own 
a more western or southern allegiance. 

It was, indeed, time that the Pucelle of the prophecy should 
appear, and that the kingdom should be saved. Charles VI. 
was crazy, having lost his reason in an orgy ; his brother and 
his queen Isabeau reigned in his stead. The rival houses of 
Orleans and Burgundy contended for the throne, carrying on 
their wars more by murder and massacre than by regular battles. 
An English army several times entered the country at the call 
of one or the other of the conflicting parties, and under the 
ruthless heel of the invaders France suffered deeper injuries 
than from her own two quarreling factions combined. At last, 
the King of England died at Vincennes, and the King of France 



218 JOAN D ARC. 

at Paris. The Duke of Bedford assumed the regency in the 
name of England ; while the dauphin Charles, wandering with 
his handful of partisans from province to province, saw his un- 
happy country desolated by civil war, the prey to anarchy and the 
spoil of mercenary strangers. He saw cities burned and pillaged, 
and vineyards and harvests devastated. Two women, both des- 
tined to immortality, took deeply to heart the afflictions of the 
prince — Agnes Sorel and Joan Dare. Agnes Sorel, his passion- 
ately loved mistress, blushed for herself and for him at his 
inglorious life, and by a happy speech stimulated him to action. 
A fortune-teller predicted to her that she would soon marry the 
greatest king in Europe. Turning to Charles, she said, "Sire, 
permit me to leave the country, that I may marry the King of 
England ; for it is plain enough that if you continue thus, you 
will not long be King of France, and cannot, therefore, be the 
object of this prediction." The throneless king shed a few bitter 
tears and then renewed the campaign. He was soon reduced to 
extremity, and his stronghold, Orleans, was closely besieged. 
Agnes Sorel now gave way to Joan Dare. 

During the progress of these events, Domremy, though 
remote, was deeply interested in the issue of the struggle. It 
had pronounced itself strongly in favor of the king, and was 
strengthened in its Armagnac fidelity by the rivalry of the 
neighboring village of Marcey, which had adopted Burgundian 
colors. Whenever the inhabitants met, it was to exchange 
blows ; the children even caught the infection, and the brothers 
of Joan often returned home bloody and bruised from encounters 
with enemies of their own age. More than once Joan gave up 
her bed to a wounded Armagnac, a fugitive from the victorious 
Burgundians. The pilgrims, beggars and monks who wandered 
from place to place, and stopped at Domremy on their way, 
terrified the listening villagers with tales of war, pillage and 
devastation. At length, a horde of bandits passed through 
the peaceful hamlet, driving the inhabitants from their homes ; 



JOAN DARC. 219 

Joan, her parents and brothers fled in dismay ; they returned 
to find the fields laid waste and the church in ashes. Thus Joan 
became familiar with the horrors of war, and while her heart 
melted with pity for her king and country, her mind dwelt 
unceasingly upon the prediction of the enchanter, that France 
should be saved by a virgin. 

One day, a fast-day, and at noon, Joan, who was then in her 
thirteenth year, saw between herself and the church a dazzling 
light, and heard a soft voice whisper in her ear: " Joan, be 
a good girl, and go often to church." She was alarmed, and ran 
into the house. Soon after, she saw another and a brighter light, 
in the midst of which were the radiant forms and outspread 
wings of angels. She recognized St. Michael, the stern arch- 
angel of judgment and battle. The figure said to her: "Joan, 
go to the assistance of the King of France, and restore to him his 
kingdom." She tremblingly replied, " Messire, I am but a poor 
village girl ; I cannot ride on horseback nor lead men to battle." 
The voice returned: "Go to M. de Baudricourt, captain at 
Vaucouleurs ; he will take you to the king. Saint Catherine 
and Saint Margaret will aid you." Joan burst into tears, and 
recorded a vow to heaven of eternal chastity. Saint Michael 
came again, armed with his lance and clad in glory ; Joan's 
pillow by night and her spinning wheel by day were surrounded 
by the white figures of saints, beseeching her in winning accents 
to hasten to the relief of France. Saint Catherine promised 
assistance from the clouds afar off. In the beatific society of her 
visions Joan passed five years, sedulously keeping her own 
counsel ; she who had known no other adviser than her poor, 
ignorant mother, now listened in rapture to the persuasions of 
the majestic cohort of heaven. 

In her eighteenth year, Joan confessed all to her mother. 
As a matter of course, her father and brothers, the village, the 
whole canton, were soon informed of her supernatural visitations. 
She became a subject of marvel to the ignorant, and of study to 



220 JOAN D ARC. 

the reflecting. Between the paternal authority on the one hand, 
and the celestial bidding on the other, poor Joan's mind was 
harassed and torn. St. Michael beckoned her to the wars ; her 
father threatened her with death if she dared to stir from home. 
The honest peasant saw no good in such dangerous favors of 
heaven, and these visits from the angels furnished the neighbors 
with a fruitful topic of scandal. Besides, in those days of cre- 
dulity, it was easy to obtain the name of sorceress, and Jacques 
Dare had no desire to see his daughter exorcised at the stake. 
He bade her dismiss her nightly company, and prepare to marry 
a peasant of the hamlet. She sought and obtained permission to 
spend some time with her uncle, Durand Laxart by name, of 
whom, by dint of persuasion, she made her earliest convert and 
her first accomplice. With him she went to Vaucouleurs, and 
lodged with the wife of a wagoner, a cousin of her mother. 
Coarsely dressed in red, her usual attire, she obtained access to 
Baudricourt. Captivated by her beauty and modest earnestness, 
the captain listened to her appeal, which she delivered in a tone 
which left no doubt of her complete sincerity. ' ' I come in the 
name of the Lord, King of Heaven, to desire you to instruct the 
dauphin to remain where he is, and not to join battle with the 
enemy at present, for God will send him succor at the feast of 
Mid-Lent. The kingdom does not belong to the dauphin, but 
to the Lord ; it shall be his, nevertheless, as a sacred trust. He 
shall be king in spite of his enemies, and I will bring him to 
Bheims to be crowned and consecrated." The captain, amazed 
at this speech, asked time for reflection, dismissed Joan and 
sent for the priest. He strongly suspected witchcraft, and his 
suspicions were eagerly shared by the alarmed churchman. 
They went together to the wagoner's hovel, the priest arrayed 
in his robes of office, as a defence against the snares of the evil 
one. He summoned Joan to his presence, and went through 
the ceremony of purification, ordering her to retire if she was in 
league with the spirit of darkness. She bore the profane ordeal 



JOANDARC. 221 

meekly ; and the priest and the captain withdrew, edified but 
undecided. 

The humble lodgings of Joan were now invaded by throngs 
of the curious, of all ranks and ages. She won many and 
interested all. She complained of the indifference of Baudri- 
court, saying to those who surrounded her: "I must be with 
the king before Mid-Lent, even though I wear my legs to the 
knees in reaching him. There is no one living, neither king nor 
duke, nor even the king of Scotland's daughter, that can give 
him back his kingdom ; there is no succor possible but myself, 
though I would rather have stayed at home to spin with my 
poor mother, for this is not my path ; but I must do the bidding 
of the Lord my master. " Two chevaliers, convinced of her 
sincerity, promised that she should speak with the king, and 
placed her hand in theirs, in token of the fidelity with which 
they would execute their engagement. 

The king was soon informed of these occurrences, and after 
consultation with his mother-in-law, Yolande of Sicily, and with 
his lieutenant, the Duke of Lorraine, sent a summons to Joan to 
appear before him at Chinon. Though he regarded her as a 
mere enthusiast and fanatic, who had taken her own insanity 
for inspiration, he nevertheless felt what a powerful influence he 
might wield over a credulous camp and a superstitious people, 
by appearing to place confidence in a possessed but beautiful 
woman, promising a crown to the king and deliverance to the 
country. Joan, therefore, prepared to leave Yaucouleurs, and to 
abandon forever her weeping parents, who had traced her flight 
from Domr£my. She resisted their prayers, and mounted her 
sorry horse — a present from her humble converts among the 
wagoner's friends at Yaucouleurs. Baudricourt gave her a sword 
and a soldier's uniform. Thus arrayed, she departed upon her 
perilous mission, pursuing her route of one hundred and fifty 
leagues across a country infested by brigands, deserters from the 
Burgundian and English armies, and rendered almost impassable 



222 JOIN D ARC. 

by the winter torrents. She started on Sunday, the 13th of 
February, 1429. Seven armed men, one of them her brother 
Pierre, formed her escort, six of whom looked upon her much 
less as a saint than a sorceress, and who might be tempted to 
discover that, whether the one or the other, she was a young and 
beautiful woman. But Joan had no apprehensions for herself: 
" Fear not for me,' 7 she said ; " God guides me on my way, and 
will bring me to the king ; I was born for that." At another 
time she said: " My brothers in Paradise tell me what to do." 
They slept over night in ruined abbeys and abandoned huts, 
and, at her command, stopped twice and attended mass. At 
last, on the eleventh day, they approached the castle of Chinon, 
where the errant court had for the moment fixed its residence. 

Her coming was awaited in anxiety and agitation. The more 
prudent counsellors of the king would have dissuaded him from 
receiving a person who, if not actually an envoy from Satan, 
was at least the messenger of her own illusion. But the army, 
who felt too deeply their need of a miracle to repulse one who 
offered to perform one in their behalf, overruled this temporizing 
advice. The king resolved to admit Joan to an audience, and 
at the same time subject to trial her supposed supernatural 
powers. He divested himself of such insignia as would have 
betrayed his rank, and mingled in the throng of courtiers. 
Joan was brought in her peasant's costume to the hall where 
the audience was to be held. The glare of the torches and the 
scrutiny of so many lords and ladies disconcerted her at first ; 
she wandered confusedly among the guests, seeking with shrink- 
ing gaze him towards whom she was sent. No sooner did she 
see him than she dropped upon her knees in homage'. "I am 
not the king," said Charles TIL " By the Lord, sweet prince," 
replied Joan, "you are he and none other. I am called Jehanne 
la Pucelle. The King of Heaven sends you word by me that 
you shall be crowned and consecrated in the city of Rheims, and 
that you shall be His vicar and lieutenant in the kingdom of 

7 



J AN D ARC. 2 



9 c \ 



Prance. " The court was struck dumb with wonder at this evi- 
dence of what then seemed inspiration, and what at this day 
cannot be regarded as mere perspicacity. It is one of the un- 
explained, and, doubtless, inexplicable, incidents of Joan's mar- 
vellous career. 

At this point of our narrative — and as we enter the miracu- 
lous phase of the life of its subject — it is proper to premise that 
every statement — even the least — contained in it, is sustained by 
evidence of the most irrefragable character. The witnesses sum- 
moned at her trial, both for the accusation and the defence, 
the depositions taken at the inquest subsequently held for her 
rehabilitation, the laborious collocation of facts and comparison of 
authorities to which the historians of France have devoted them- 
selves as to a labor of love, have contributed to the elaboration 
of a narrative which combines conditions and elements of authen- 
ticity of which few other chronicles can boast. There is hardly 
an allegation not supported over and over again by testimony 
taken under oath and furnished by persons who had no motive 
to deceive. It would be a poor recognition of the zeal mani- 
fested by the biographers of the Maid of Orleans, to regard her 
most authentic story, as it has been rescued from the archives 
of the past, with any portion of the distrust with which it is the 
custom, often justifiable enough, to receive the memoirs of the 
middle ages and of the Cinque Cento era of French and Italian 
history. 

The king still hesitated, and his councils were distracted by 
conflicting opinions. The commander of his forces besieged in Or- 
leans — the famous Dunois — dispatched messenger after messenger 
to Charles, imploring him to send the inspired maiden to his relief. 
The king resolved to subject her to one more trial, not for the 
purpose of testing her powers, of which he was already con- 
vinced, but to decide whether she derived them from the Source 
of Light or from the Prince of Darkness. The two oracles of 
the time, the University and the Parliament, driven from Paris 



224 JOAN DARO. 

by the Burgundians, had fixed their temporary seat at Poi- 
tiers. Thither the king himself conducted Joan, and there he 
presided over the council assembled to examine her. The art- 
less damsel sustained for three long weeks the trying ordeal, 
replying to the profound inquiries of the Archbishop of Rheims 
with a grand and earnest simplicity. She narrated her inter- 
views with the angels, and gave the very language of St. Michael. 
A Dominican friar sought to draw her into the labyrinth of 
metaphysics : " Jehanne," he said, " you say that God wishes to 
deliver France from her enemies : if such is his will, he has no 
need of soldiers." " The soldiers will fight," she replied in- 
stantly, " and God will give the victory." " Aide-toi, et le ciel 
t'aidera," she might have said, quoting the famous maxim depre- 
cating a too listless reliance upon heaven. Another theologian 
asked her for a sign or miracle, saying that without such a 
guaranty of her sincerity, the king would not risk his army. 
" I was not sent to Poitiers to give signs," she answered : " my 
sign will be the deliverance of Orleans from siege. If you wish 
to see my sign, give me soldiers, few or many matters not, 
I'll go.' 7 A learned brother by the name of Seguin, a native 
of Limoges, and in consequence speaking one of the most dis- 
agreeable dialects in France, now felt disposed to break a lance 
with Joan, and opened the tilt in this wise : " What language 
did St. Michael speak i n " Better French than you do," retort- 
ed Joan — her first display of causticity, though not by any means 
her last. Frere Seguin held his peace thereafter, his colleagues 
enjoying, as theologians often will, the discomfiture of their 
brother. 

The verdict of the council was rendered at last, to the effect 
that nothing was impossible to God, that the Bible was full of 
mysteries and of examples which might, broadly construed, 
be taken as authority in the case now before them. God had 
often intrusted secrets, withheld from men, to virgins, and espe- 
cially to sibyls. The Archbishop of Embrun was of opinion that 



JOANDARC. 225 

the demon could not enter into a pact with a maiden : if, there- 
fore, Joan was in sober truth a maiden, her evident inspiration 
must have been a gift from on high. The good queen-dowager, 
Yolande of Sicily, presided at the ridiculous examination sug- 
gested by the archbishop's theory, and Joan issued triumphant 
from the last of her long series of trials. She was now accepted 
as the saviour of the country ; men, women and children nocked 
to see her at the house in which she lodged — that of a lawyer's 
widow. From time to time a skeptic offered to prove, text in 
hand, and to her own satisfaction, that she was an impostor ; to 
one of them she replied: " I know neither A nor B ; but I have 
come from God to deliver Orleans and consecrate the king." 

There was now no time to lose. The citizens of Orleans 
clamored for the deliverance which the Pucelle promised in the 
name of the Most High, and Dunois sent daily to hasten her 
approach. Joan was equipped as became her new condition ; 
the king's artificers forged a suit of light and polished armor, 
in which she girded herself for the battle. Her standard was 
white, strewn with the emblematic fleurs-de-lis, and fringed 
with silk ; an embroidery in the centre represented the Saviour 
with the globe in his hands. Her jet black horse formed a 
striking contrast to her banner and coat of mail. She directed a 
search to be made in the neighboring church of St. Catherine de 
Fierbois for a long, rusty sword, upon the blade of which would 
be seen five deep crosses. The sword was found behind the 
altar of the chapel. This was considered at the time an instance 
of Joan's supernatural knowledge, but it was afterwards clearly 
shown that she had stopped to pray in St. Catherine's, before 
entering Chinon ; she had undoubtedly seen the sword there, and 
made use of the circumstance to augment the popular confidence 
in her divinity. Her staff consisted of Jean Daulon, a knight 
who had grown grey in the service of the king, and who was 
made her equerry and protector ; of a page of noble birth, of 
two heralds, a steward and two valets. Her brother, Pierre, 



226 JOAN D ARC. 

who had permanently attached himself to her cause, and her con- 
fessor, Jean Pasquerel, a hermit of the order of St. Augustin, 
completed the body-guard with which she set forth upon her 
errand. 

She joined the king's forces at Blois, where she was received 
in triumph by the rank and file. The soldiers welcomed her 
as a saint commissioned to deliver the country, the officers 
respected her as one who, at least, bore an order from the king, 
even if she had come to execute no higher bidding. She at once 
commenced a reform of the morals of the army. Cards and dice 
were thrown into the flames, and the instruments with which the 
black art was pursued, broken up ; women of bad life w T ere 
driven from the camp, and priests and preachers urged countless 
throngs of listeners to repentance and amendment. Joan fol- 
lowed these holy men on foot through the streets of the city ; 
she summoned before her the most terrible and unconscionable 
brigands in the army, and forbade them even to swear. The 
redoubtable Lahire found it so difficult to obey this order, that 
Joan was glad to effect a compromise, and allowed him to swear 
"by his staff." 

She advanced with her forces towards Orleans along the 
southern bank of the Loire. At night, an altar was built in the 
open air, and Joan and her officers partook of the holy communion. 
She slept in her armor, though its weight fatigued her sorely. 
On the third day, she arrived opposite Orleans, the river lying 
between the city and her troops. Dunois saw her from the 
ramparts, and, crossing the stream in a boat, met her at the 
water's edge. "Are you the bastard of Orleans?" she asked. 
" I am," he replied, " and glad I am at your approach." " Have 
no fear," returned Joan ; " God lays out my path before me, 
and for this was I born. I bring you the best succor ever borne 
to knight or city — succor sent from Heaven." The wind at this 
moment changed, and the boats, laden with provisions and arms 
for the besieged, which had been for several days prevented 



JO AN D ARC. 227 

from landing their cargoes, approached the wharf and discharged 
their welcome burden. 

The next morning, Joan dismissed her escort, charging them 
to report her safe arrival to Charles. She crossed the river with 
two hundred lances only, and at eight o'clock in the evening 
of the 29th of April, she entered the beleaguered city. She was 
mounted upon a white charger, preceded by her standard and 
followed by a retinue of nobles and lords, and soldiers of her 
escort and of the garrison. Men and women lighted her path 
with torches ; priests and children knelt by the roadside, and 
reverentially touched her spurs and stirrups. She went at once 
to the cathedral, and joined in a Te Deum for the liberated city. 
The wife of the Duke of Orleans' treasurer had been directed 
to place her house at Joan's disposal ; beneath this hospitable 
roof she removed her cumbrous armor, and sat down to a well- 
spread table. In remembrance of her father's poverty and the 
simplicity in which she and her family had passed their lives, she 
accepted nothing but bread and a glass of the wine furnished 
by the vintage of the neighboring hills. After singing a hymn 
with the family of her hostess, and affectionately kissing her 
standard, she retired to rest with the treasurer's daughter, 
Charlotte. 

The next day she dictated a letter to the commander of 
the English forces, urging him to abandon the siege, and 
promising him honorable treatment if he would come and 
deliberate upon the subject with her in the city. The Eng- 
lish captain, Grladesdall, received the missive with contempt, call- 
ing Joan a cow-tender and a wanton. He detained the herald 
prisoner, and threatened to burn him, as a specimen of the 
treatment his mistress might expect. Joan then sent to Tal- 
bot, challenging him to single combat before the ramparts, 
adding, " if you are victorious, you shall burn me at the stake ; 
if vanquished, you shall raise the siege." Talbot replied by a 
disdainful silence — the only answer, indeed, that a veteran could 



228 JOANDARC. 

return to a peasant girl of twenty years who dared him to the 
field. 

Joan was now anxious to attack the English fortresses, or as 
they were then called, bastilles. She manifested the utmost 
confidence in herself and in the divine assistance upon which 
she counted in the hour of need — a confidence which was fully 
shared by the people and the soldiers. Dunois affected to yield 
in all things to her advice, though often in defiance of his own 
judgment, and as often offending the counsellors whose opinions 
he had been accustomed to ask and to respect. Gamaches, an 
old soldier, furled his banner and surrendered it to Dunois, saying 
that he preferred fighting in the ranks to obeying the mad ca- 
prices of a girl. Joan was in fact regarded with distrust by the 
officers of her own army, and by them as well as by the Eng- 
lish, the wish was often uttered, accompanied by coarse exple- 
tives, that she might go home to her needle and her flocks. 

Dunois soon announced to Joan the approach of a strong 
English force under Falstaff, which, with those already upon the 
ground, would complete the investment of the city. Joan, fear- 
ing that the officers would prevail upon Dunois to act without 
consulting her, said, " Bastard, bastard, the moment this army 
appears upon the field, let me know it ; for if it shows itself, and 
I do not give it battle, I will have your head taken off." Some 
time later, Joan was attempting to sleep in the middle of the 
day, but an anxiety for which she could not account prevented 
her from closing her eyes. Suddenly jumping up, she called for 
Daulon and ordered him to arm her, saying that a presentiment 
instructed her to attack the English. The streets were full of 
armed men, and distant sounds told of the shock of contending 
forces. "Grod bless us!" exclaimed Joan, "the blood of French- 
men is flowing ! Why was I not awakened sooner ? Quick, my 
arms ! my horse !" She rushed half equipped from the house, 
mounted her steed, and receiving her standard from an open 
window, spurred toward the gate of the city. She met several 



JOANDARC. 229 

of her soldiers returning wounded from the fight. " Alas !" she 
said, " I can never see French blood without my hair standing on 
my head." She was speedily informed that the garrison had 
attempted to surprise one of the English fortresses, and that 
they had been ingloriously driven back by Talbot to the ram- 
parts. She dashed through the portal, rallied her men, led them 
back to the charge, and assailed the fortress with the spirit and 
courage of a tigress. The victory was almost instantaneous, and 
Joan, forgetting her indignation at the treachery of her officers 
in the emotion naturally excited by the first sight of carnage, 
wept over her enemies who had died without confession, and 
uttered a hasty and shuddering prayer for the repose of their 
unshriven souls. 

It was now resolved to attack the remaining bastilles of the 
English, and if possible disengage the city. Joan ascended to 
the summit of a tower, attached a summons to surrender to 
an arrow, and shot it with her own hands into the hostile camp. 
The enemy replied by invectives and taunts, coupled with atro- 
cious insinuations against the character and life of Joan. She 
shed tears as she heard them read. Drying her eyes with 
the back of her hands, she said, l ' Pshaw ! the Lord knows these 
are nothing but lies." She started the next morning at break 
of day — Saturday, the 7th of May — to lead the assault. Her 
hostess begged her to taste a morsel of fresh shad which had been 
just taken from the river. " Keep it till night," said Joan, add- 
ing with unconscious profanity, "I will bring a Goddam with me 
who shall eat his share." She summoned Gaucourt, one of the 
refractory officers, to open the gate of Bourgogne. He refused, 
and the impatient army forced it from its hinges. Their boats 
soon covered the bosom of the Loire, Joan and Lahire dragging 
their horses after them ; the sun rose upon this inspiring scene. 
Early in the contest, Joan was wounded in the shoulder, an 
arrow passing through her flesh and out upon the other side. 
She fell inanimate in the moat, and a party of English descended 



230 JOAN DARO. 

from the bastille to secure the inestimable prize. Gamaches, 
who had refused to fight under her orders, valiantly defended 
her till aid arrived and she was carried from the scene. She be- 
came a woman again at the sight of the blood pouring from the 
wound, and she prayed to St. Michael not to desert her at this 
strait. She repelled those who proposed to heal or charm 
the wound by magic — at that time a common resource among the 
superstitious — saying that she would rather die than be restored 
against the will of God. The pain was alleviated by an applica- 
tion of olive oil, and then Joan withdrew into a vineyard to pray 
for her soldiers, who, deeply discouraged by the mishap which 
had befallen her, were flying from the field. 

Her standard still lay in the moat where it had fallen from 
her hands. Her equerry Daulon, unwilling that such a trophy 
should come into the possession of the enemy, proceeded with a 
handful of men to redeem it. He returned successful, and found 
Joan again on horseback. As he restored it to her, its folds 
opened in the breeze, and the rays of the now setting sun struck 
full upon it. The retreating French rallied at the signal, and 
rushed back at the call of their resuscitated saint. The bastille 
was overpowered, attacked with irresistible impetus from three 
sides at once. A panic seized the English, and in their super- 
stitious terrors, they saw Joan's celestial cohorts, mounted on 
fiery chargers, descending from the clouds. Gladesclall, who 
had so foully insulted Joan, fell from a bridge which a cannon 
ball shattered beneath his feet, and was drowned before her 
very eyes. " Heaven have mercy on thy soul !" she cried, as he 
disappeared from view. Five hundred men were put to the 
sword, and the foe was thus swept from the southern bank of 
the Loire. The next day, Sunday, the English abandoned the 
fortresses of the north, leaving their artillery, their prisoners, 
their sick and wounded, behind. The retreat was conducted in 
good order by Talbot and Suffolk. Joan would not suffer them 
to be pursued, but while they were still in sight, ordered an 



JOAN DARO. 231 

altar to be erected on the plain, and thanks to be offered to 
heaven for the deliverance of the city. The siege, which had 
lasted seven months before Joan's arrival, was raised ten days 
after she entered its walls. The people recognized her as their 
saviour, and as she returned to Orleans, her armor dyed with 
blood, they prostrated themselves before her, embracing the 
very knees of her horse. Her fame spread over the continent, 
and in the remotest corner of France the people waited im- 
patiently for tidings of the peasant saint — so soon to be the 
maiden martyr. Orleans made Joan its tutelary divinity, and 
inscribed the 8th of May in its archives as its sacred and peculiar 
anniversary. 

Bidding adieu to her kind hostess and to the people she had 
delivered, Joan led her victorious army back to Blois, where the 
king received her not only as one holding authority upon earth, 
but as one whom he recognized as bearing a mission from 
heaven. Joan offered to conduct him at once to Rheims, though 
the intervening country was occupied by the English and Bur- 
gundians, there to consecrate him king in the cathedral of 
Clovis and Philip Augustus. Should the English anticipate him, 
and, by a rapid movement upon the ecclesiastical city, be the 
first to crown their pretender, young Henry VI., Charles would 
forever lose the throne of France. Joan was alone in this 
opinion ; the step was denounced as foolhardy and impracticable 
by the ablest counsellors of the king. "I shall last but a year 
more," she said, sadly; "you must employ me quick or not at 
all." The king hesitated, and closeting himself with bishops 
and favorites, wasted the precious hours in unavailing delibera- 
tion. At last he yielded to the remonstrances of his patroness, 
resolving to attempt the enterprise ; but first sending forth the 
Duke d'Alencon, under Joan's guidance, to drive the English 
from the strongholds yet in their possession upon the Loire. 
Suffolk was attacked at Jargeau ; Joan led the assault, one of 

the most bloody of the war, with 5,000 men. She was thrown 
15 



232 JOAN DAEO. 

from her horse by a stone, which cleft her helmet upon her head. 
She recovered herself, and dripping with the water of the moat, 
rode victorious into the city. Meun and Beaugency surrendered 
without resistance. Joan was now regarded as invincible, and 
the Duke de Eichemont, grand constable or commander-in-chief 
of the armies of France, until now in disgrace with the king, 
joined her standard unsolicited. Her first battle in the open 
field took place immediately after this accession to her forces. 
" We will have them to-day," said Joan, " even if to escape they 
should hang themselves to the clouds." 2,000 English were left- 
dead upon the plain. Joan wept when the trumpets proclaimed 
the victory. Seeing a wounded wretch struggling in the agonies 
of death, she sprang from her horse, and, taking his head in her 
arms, supported him till a priest whom she had summoned could 
arrive and grant him absolution. This struggle — known as the 
battle of Patay — decided the fate of France. The English retired 
in disorder, burning the villages and devastating the fields through 
which they passed. Joan returned to Orleans, and then rejoined 
the king at Grien-on-the-Loire. 

The indolent young monarch at last resolved to make the pil- 
grimage to Rheims. He could not, indeed, have longer resisted 
the ardent solicitations of the motley but enthusiastic throngs 
who now flocked to Joan's standard. They departed on the 
29th of June. Avoiding Paris, which was held by the Eng- 
lish regent, the Duke of Bedford, they halted before the city 
of Auxerre. Not caring to lay siege to it, they accepted the 
provisions which it offered as a compromise between resistance 
and surrender. On the 4th of July they arrived at Troyes, 
where, eight years before, the treaty had been signed which 
excluded Charles VII. from the throne of his ancestors. Joan 
promised that the city should yield or fall within three days, 
though defended by a strong force of Burgundians. The latter 
were brought to terms by the sight of the preparations for the 
siege within the allotted time, and on the 9th of the month 



JOANDARO. 233 

Charles and Joan made their entrance, side by side, into the 
Burgundian stronghold. Chalons submitted in its turn. The 
enthusiasm of the peasants inhabiting the localities in the neigh- 
borhood of Joan's birth-place, through which the army was now 
passing, knew no bounds. Her two younger brothers joined her 
standard, and received emblems of knighthood from the king. 

They now approached the limit of their march. Charles 
anticipated a vigorous resistance at Rheims, and, as he had no 
artillery, looked forward to a long and difficult siege. But Joan 
reassured him saying: "Have no fear; the citizens of Rheims 
will come forth to meet you. Act with energy, and you will 
recover your kingdom." The army arrived before Rheims on 
the 16th of July. The English quitted the city secretly, and the 
notables laid the keys of the gates at the feet of the king. Joan 
dictated the next morning her famous letter to the Duke of 
Burgundy, in which she sought to reconcile the leaders of the 
two contending factions. "Pardon each other in good faith," 
she said, "as loyal Christians should. If you must make war, 
Prince of Burgundy, go fight the Saracen. The King of Heaven 
warns you, through me, that you shall win no battle against the 
French, and that all those who fight against the holy kingdom 
of France fight against Jesus. I pray and beseech you, with 
clasped hands and upon bended knees, wage no battle against 
us ; you will gain nothing, in whatever number you may come, 
and it would be a pity to shed blood in vain. Three weeks ago 
I sent you conciliating letters by my herald, bidding you to the 
coronation of the king, which, to-day, Sunday, the 17th day of 
this present month of July, takes place in the city of Rheims. 
I have had no answer nor news of the herald. I recommend 
you to God, and pray that He may make peace between us.' 7 

The imposing ceremony of the consecration took place at 
noon, at Notre Dame de Rheims. The archbishop who performed 
it had come from Blois with the king, and owed his diocese, as 
Charles did his crown, to the Maid of Orleans. Joan stood by 



234 JOANDARC. 

the altar, her banner in her hand. The holy oil which had been 
preserved since the time of Clovis, was used in anointing the 
sovereign. When the time-honored ritual was concluded, Joan 
embraced the king's knees, and speaking through her tears, said : 
" Now is accomplished, sweet king, the pleasure of the Lord, 
who ordered me to raise the siege of Orleans, and conduct you 
to your city of Rheims, that you might receive His holy ordina- 
tion, and show yourself to be the king, and that to you the 
kingdom belongs." That none of the formalities customary at a 
coronation might be omitted, Charles went, after the ceremony, to 
a neighboring hospital and laid his hands upon persons afflicted 
with the king's evil. Thus, being the first consecrated, he became 
king by divine right ; had the English succeeded in conferring 
upon their pretender a similar ordination, the second baptism, 
in the estimation of the nation, would have been merely a parody 
and profanation of the first. 

Joan felt, on entering Rheims, that her mission was accom- 
plished, and her task on earth achieved. She even had a pre- 
sentiment of her approaching end, though not of the martyrdom 
which was to attend it. " excellent and devout people !" 
she said, as she rode into the city; "if I am to die, let me 
be buried here !" Still her triumph was not devoid of gratifying 
episodes. Women brought their children to her, that they 
might grasp the hem of her garments. Soldiers fell upon their 
knees and kissed her standard. Warriors grown grey in the 
harness placed their weapons in contact with her sword, that 
the touch might sanctify their arms and the cause in which they 
might draw them. But she modestly declined this superstitious 
worship, attributing all the glory of her work to Him who had 
sent her. But another and a purer pleasure awaited her at 
Rheims. Her father and uncle — whom the city received and 
treated as its guests — had come from Domremy to meet her. 
The interview between the parent and his child was long and 
touching ; he told her of the cottage, her mother, and her sister j 



JOAN DARO 235 

of the church, the vineyard, and the flocks ; and sought, by every 
argument he could devise, to induce her to return. " Would to 
Heaven," she said, "that I could lay down my arms and return 
to serve my father and mother, by tending their herds with 
my sister and brothers ! They would be glad to see me !" 
Happy would it have been for Joan, and happier still for history 
and humanity, had she listened to the entreaties of her family 
and the counsels of her conscience ; the annals of England and 
France would have been spared the most revolting tragedy 
which sullies their blood-stained pages. 

The genius or the inspiration of Joan expired with the 
necessity which had created and sustained it. This necessity 
no longer existed after the coronation of the dauphin. France 
was already casting forth the usurpers from her bosom, and the 
path of the king lay clear and distinct before him. Neither he 
nor the country needed the further interposition of the peculiar 
elements which had constituted the authority and influence of the 
Pucelle, from whatever source it was derived. He had been 
consecrated by the holy oil — that divine balsam which, employed 
to anoint the sovereign, has often served to heal the animosities 
begotten in civil war. The season for miracles had passed, and 
even the simple magic of the Maid of Orleans was henceforward 
inopportune. Though she felt this keenly, as her replies to 
questions addressed her upon her trial distinctly proved, she 
suffered herself to be overruled by the army, who besought 
her to remain their prophetess and their saint. She remained, 
though bereft of her inspiration and soon to be shorn of her 
infallibility. The oracle within her was silent ; the voices which 
had whispered their celestial counsels in her ear were dumb. 
She was a woman, lost and out of place in the midst of courts 
and camps, where she had lately been a warrior and an apostle. 

Late in the month of August, Charles, Joan and their army 
approached the city of Paris. Joan would willingly have 
stopped at the suburb of St. Denis, the burial-place of the kings 



236 JOANDARC. 

of France and consequently possessing, like Rheims, a sacred 
character in her eyes. She felt an undefined dread of Paris, 
which she was unable to explain in words ; it was doubtless 
the consciousness of the danger to which her life, her inspiration 
and her motives were exposed, when confronted with the sar- 
casm, the raillery and infidelity of the metropolis. An assault 
was, nevertheless, decided upon, and Joan was the first who 
reached the outer moat. She scrambled over a wall and arrived 
at the second, which was a water moat, and full to its edge. 
While sounding its depth with her lance, she was struck by 
an arrow which passed through her thigh. The assault was 
repulsed, the besiegers losing fifteen hundred men. Maledictions 
were freely uttered agairist Joan, who was made to bear the 
responsibility of an attack which she had ardently opposed. 
During the winter she laid siege to two towns — Le Moustier and 
La Charite — victorious in the first, unsuccessful in the second. 

In May, 1430, she marched to the relief of Compiegne, which 
was besieged by the united forces of the English and the Burgun- 
dians. She threw her troops into the town, and on the 24th, led 
a sortie with six hundred men. They crossed the bridge spanning 
the river Oise, and entered the field occupied by the enemy's 
camp. Joan was easily recognizable by the rich velvet tunic 
which she wore over her armor. It was five o'clock in the 
afternoon ; the Burgundians were taken completely by surprise, 
with such marvellous celerity was the onset conducted. It was 
repulsed, however, and the French withdrew in disorder toward 
the bridge. Joan covered the retreat, fighting with desperate 
valor and facing the enemy even in her flight. She arrived the 
last at the draw, just in time to see it raised before her, cutting 
off the only path of escape. She was surrounded, seized and 
dragged from her horse. Lionel de Yend6me, into whose hands 
she fell, sold her for a price to Jean de Luxembourg, general in 
chief of the Duke of Burgundy. Her capture was celebrated by 
the cannon of the camps and the Te Deum of the cathedrals, in 



JO A N D A RC. 237 

all the provinces yet faithful to the allies. Her loss was de- 
plored with grief and consternation in Compiegne, and the bells 
of the churches pealed forth a solemn requiem in memory of 
their transcendent heroine. 

Joan was imprisoned by Luxembourg in his castle of Beau- 
revoir, where, though closely confined, she was kindly treated 
by the wife and sister of her captor. They besought her to lay 
aside her martial attire, offering her cloth of which to make gar- 
ments more suited to her sex. She declined, saying that without 
the permission of God she would not quit the costume in which 
she had been permitted to serve His cause. In the meantime, 
the English, whose rage against her had been inflamed by her 
capture, were intriguing for the possession of her person. They 
felt that if she was not condemned and executed as a sorceress, 
and her exploits and triumphs thus repudiated and branded as 
the work of the Evil One, she would be forever regarded as a 
saint and her acts chronicled as miracles. They, who had fought 
against her, would be thus placed in the position of enemies 
of heaven ; their cause was, therefore, unrighteous, and their lot 
perdition. The inquisition of Paris, the ally of the usurpers, 
and the University, the ally of the inquisition, claimed with 
pressing instance the body of Joan from Luxembourg. They 
even invoked the ecclesiastical authority, and, suborning the 
fierce and fanatical bishop of Beauvais, Cauchon by name, bribed 
him to claim Joan as a prisoner of war taken within the limits 
of his diocese. A correspondence ensued with the king of Eng- 
land, at the close of which Cauchon offered to Luxembourg, in 
the name of his majesty, six thousand francs in exchange for the 
body of the captive, to be judged by himself and the grand 
inquisitor, jointly. Observing that Luxembourg hesitated, he 
finally offered ten thousand francs, upon which the nefarious 
bargain was concluded. 

These negotiations had occupied six months. Joan had been 
transferred from prison to prison, her captors, the Burgundians, 



238 JOAN DARO. 

fearing either a rescue by the French or a seizure by the Eng- 
lish. At Beaurevoir, maddened by captivity, she threw herself 
headlong from the tower in which she was confined, maiming, 
not killing herself, in the fall. At Arras, a companion in capti- 
vity, a Scotchman and a soldier in the army of Charles VII., 
showed her a small painting which he carried concealed upon his 
person, in which she was represented as delivering to the 
dauphin the letter of Baudricourt. Her portrait had never to 
her knowledge been taken, and this proof of the interest she had 
excited at so early a period of her career, affected the poor cap- 
tive to tears. At Crotoy, on the English Channel, whose severe 
and imposing citadel has now disappeared beneath the sands 
of the shore, she saw, when the atmosphere was clear, the Eng- 
lish Downs, the hostile coast to which she had at one period 
hoped to carry the war of deliverance. It was here, condemned 
to solitude, that she awaited the decree which was to consign 
her to the hands of Bedford, the implacable chief of her cruel 
enemies. Early in January of the year 1431, a detachment of 
English soldiers presented to her jailer the paper ordering her 
surrender, and conducted her in rude haste to Rouen. Here the 
terrible tribunal was assembled ; its object being to place a ban on 
the coronation of Charles, by proving it to have been the work 
of a sorceress, and, by implication, to pronounce it null and 
void ; to try, condemn, and execute the messenger of the fiend, 
and to involve in her disgrace the sovereign who owed her his 
crown. 

The tribunal consisted, nominally, of one hundred doctors, 
ecclesiastic and secular, who constituted the jury, and of two 
judges, the bishop of Beauvais and the vicar of the inquisition, 
who were to pronounce the sentence. Before the opening of the 
court, spies and informers were sent to Domremy to collect such 
evidence against Joan as village gossip and the enmities which her 
triumphs had perchance awakened, might, by skillful distortion 
be made to present. The emissaries returned laden with ardent 



JOAN PARC. 239 

testimonials of her virtues, her filial obedience, and of her sin- 
cere religious faith. Foiled in this, her accusers resorted to an 
adroit but infamous scheme. They confined in her cell a man 
named Loyseleur, giving her to understand that he was a Lor- 
rain like herself, and that his offence, like hers, was attachment 
to Charles VII. They hoped that the sympathy which Joan 
could not fail to feel for a compatriot, would induce her to make 
avowals which might artfully be made to pass for admissions of 
crime. While the crafty Loyseleur sought to draw from his con- 
fiding companion such self-accusations, the bishop of Beauvais 
listened behind a wainscot, noting down her replies. Without 
the prison, witnesses who were expected to depose in her favor, 
were intimidated and driven from the city ; and a woman who 
maintained that Joan was a good and virtuous girl, was burned 
alive. 

Though thus far only accused, Joan was treated as if con- 
victed. Her feet were heavily chained to a log, while a second 
chain bound her by the waist. It is even alleged that she was 
confined in an iron cage : such an instrument was certainly made, 
though it may not have been employed. Her cell was treble- 
locked, and the three keys were confided to three different per- 
sons. She was guarded by five English soldiers, three of whom 
occupied her cell at night. They treated her so abominably, 
that Bedford was compelled, out of sheer anxiety lest she should 
die before her trial, to remove them and appoint others in their 
place. Charles VII., everywhere victorious against his enemies, 
and indifferent to the fate of one who could no longer serve him, 
abandoned her to her persecutors^ after a single and ineffectual 
attempt to ransom her of the Duke of Burgundy. 

On the 21st of February, Joan was brought before the 
tribunal ; but thirty-nine out of the one hundred members of 
the court were present. She was chained and dressed in her 
military costume. She was allowed neither counsel nor advo- 
cate, in defiance of a custom of the period, which forbade persons 



240 JOAN DARO. 

below the age of twenty-five to be tried or condemned without 
proper and capable defenders. The bishop of Beauvais addressed 
her in tones of hypocritical kindness, as if to attest his impar- 
tiality. She complained of the pressure of the chains upon her 
limbs. The bishop replied that they were rendered necessary 
by her early attempts to escape ; to which she returned, that as 
she had never given her parole not to seek safety in flight, she 
had committed no crime. The bishop, without ordering her 
bonds to be loosened, caused the act of accusation to be read ; 
in which, charged with offences against the church rather than 
against the state, she was held to have been guilty of heresy 
and of the damnable art of sorcery. She was then interrogated 
upon her name, her age, and her faith. Upon the latter point, 
she said that her mother had taught her to recite the Pater, the 
Ave, and the Credo. Upon being asked to repeat aloud the two 
prayers and the profession of faith, she hesitated, and finally 
refused ; offering, however, to say them to the bishop, if he 
would condescend to hear her in confession. This was an adroit 
turn, for it gave her a reasonable pretext for avoiding a public 
recital of the prayers, which, being in Latin, she might have 
repeated inaccurately, thus exposing herself to the subtle logic 
of the church, and, had she made the slightest error, to the 
accusation of holding heretical opinions. It offered her, too, 
the chance, though a slight one, of converting her temporal 
judge into her spiritual adviser. But Cauchon refused and 
adjourned the session. 

The following day Joan was urged to abridge the trial and 
♦jase her conscience by confessing everything she knew. She 
was easily brought to swear that she would truthfully narrate all 
that concerned herself ; but as to what regarded God and the 
king, "they might cut her head off rather." She at last con- 
sented to tell the story of her visions, of her sleepless nights, and 
of her first interview with the dauphin. All this she narrated in 
her innocent, almost infantine manner. She would not say by 



JOAN DARO. 241 

what means she had recognized his majesty, and was led back to 
her cell almost fainting with fatigue and emotion. 

Upon the third day, urged by the bishop to divulge certain 
secrets to which she was supposed to be a party, she said: 
"My lord, reflect that you are my judge, and that you are put- 
ting yourself in great danger, for verily I was sent by God." 
The interrogatory then continued: " Do you still hear your 
voices ?" " Yes." " When did you hear them last?" "To-day." 
"What were you doing?" "I was asleep and they awoke me." 
"Did you go upon your knees to reply?" "No; I simply 
thanked them for their consolation ; I was sitting upon my bed, 
and prayed them to assist me in my distress." "Did they tell 
you that they would save you from your present danger?" "I 
decline replying." Being pressed to disclose the whole truth 
upon the matters the court wished to investigate, she answered : 
"Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the 
truth." 

Thus circumvented and disconcerted, the bishop of Beauvais 
puzzled his brain to invent a question requiring a categoric an- 
swer, yes or no, either of which would subject her to an accusa- 
tion of heresy. There was one question which, in that age, 
could hardly be propounded to any living being without crime 
on the part of the interrogator — that as to the belief of the re- 
spondent respecting his or her salvation ; and this the perfidious 
bishop resolved to address to Joan. Should she reply that she 
did not think herself in a state of grace, she acknowledged her- 
self unworthy of having been the instrument of God. Should she 
say that she believed herself in a state of grace, she committed 
the sin of the Pharisee, and her presumption might challenge 
the chastisement of the church. So, with insidious accent, he 
launched the fatal question : " Joan, do you believe yourself in 
a state of grace ?" " If I am not," she replied, with epigramma- 
tic yet Christian simplicity, " God bring me there ; if I am, God 
keep me there !" After this sublime response, an adjournment 



242 JOANDARC. 

was indispensable ; the doctors departed in amazement. " Fue- 
runt multum stupefacti," says the manuscript record of the 
trial. 

On other occasions, the following questions and answers 
passed between the judges and their prisoner. " Was Saint 
Michael naked when he appeared to you?" " Do you think 
that the King of Heaven has no glory wherewith to clothe his 
saints !" " Why was your standard borne to the church of 
RLeims, at the coronation, more than those of the other cap- 
tains !" " My standard had been in the fight, it was but just 
it should be also at the triumph." " Did you not disobey your 
father and mother in going to the wars?" " God bade me go ; 
had I a hundred fathers and mothers, I should have gone all the 
same." " Does God hate the English?" " Of the love or hate 
of God for the English, or of what He does with their souls, I 
know nothing : but I know that the English will be driven out 
of France, except those who perish in it." 

A month had now passed ; the assessors abandoned all hope 
of convicting Joan of sorcery. She was firmly persuaded that 
she had been visited by saints — a persuasion which might be re- 
garded as erroneous, but not criminal or sinful. But the very 
fervor of her piety, which had led her to commune directly with 
God, the Saviour and the saints, and thus to forego and reject 
the mediation of the church, suggested a vulnerable point of 
attack. She might easily be convicted of giving a preference to 
her own inspiration over the recognized ecclesiastical authorities. 
She was asked if she would acknowledge the prerogative of 
the church. She replied that Jesus and the church were the 
same thing ; that she had been sent by Jesus, and of course 
recognized his authority. She was then told that there was 
a distinction to make ; that God, the saints and the saved consti- 
tuted the Church Triumphant ; and that the Pope, the cardinals, 
bishops, and all good Christians constituted the Church Militant. 
" Will you submit to the decision of this church ?" " To the 



J AN D ARC. 243 

Church Victorious," she replied, "I submit myself, my works, 
and all that I have done or am to do." " And to the Church 
Militant?" "I decline answering." In her anguish, Joan 
prayed to be delivered from the temptations which beset her. 
" Sweet Lord," she said, " I pray you by your Holy Passion to 
tell me what I am to reply to these churchmen. I know what to 
do as regards my life ; but in other matters, I do not hear the 
commands of my guides." Thus harassed and tortured, Joan's 
strength gave way ; she fell sick, and the trial was interrupted. 
She was carried back to her dungeon, and left to languish away 
her wretched days in chains, solitude and darkness. 

Cauchon had intended to await Joan's recovery to obtain 
from her a refusal to recognize and acknowledge the visible 
church, which he well knew would ruin her. But as the poor 
victim lay consumed with fever in her doleful cell, he descended 
with his scribes and assessors to the pitiable scene of human 
anguish. "Would she submit to a council?" he asked, hoping 
and expecting a negative reply. A humane assessor, making 
known to Joan his sympathy rather by his tone than by his 
words, explained to her that a council was a general assembly 
of the church. " Yery well, then," said Joan, "I submit." 
Cauchon, enraged at this concession, which, should it become 
public, would save her from death, furiously forbade the scribe 
to record it in his notes. " Alas !" she said, with piteous accent, 
"you write down all that is against me, and will not write 
what is for me !" The tender-hearted ecclesiastic, on leaving 
the cell, was accused of prompting the prisoner, and threatened 
with a cold bath in the Seine. He fled that night from Rouen, 
with several of his colleagues. 

The English were in mortal fear lest Joan should, by a 
natural death, escape their vengeance. "The king would not 
for the world have her die," said her brutal jailer; "he paid 
enough for her to have the right to burn her. Why don't the 
doctors cure her ?" Holy Week commenced with Palm Sunday, 



244 JOANDARC. 

and though deprived of the religious consolations to which, on 
this Christian anniversary, she had long been accustomed, she 
revived sufficiently to attend the sessions of the tribunal. Com- 
manded to exchange her male garments for those of her sex, she 
consented, on condition that she should have a long and ample 
robe, "like the modest daughters of the citizens of Rouen." Her 
motive in retaining her military attire, and, upon abandoning it, 
in exacting this condition, will be understood, when it is remem- 
bered that three soldiers occupied her cell with her at night, and 
that they made no secret of their infamous intentions, when the 
verdict should be once pronounced. The sessions were suspended 
on Thursday and Friday, and Joan spent the days on which the 
faithful throughout Christendom were celebrating the Last Sup- 
per and the Crucifixion, in the black depths of her miserable 
dungeon. All this she bore in meek submission ; but when, on 
Easter Sunday, the joyous melody from the spires and belfries 
of Rouen, penetrating her prison-house, announced that Christ 
had arisen from the dead and had opened the portals of heaven, 
exhausted nature gave way, and she wept bitter and scalding 
tears as she found herself excluded from the feast, repulsed from 
the universal communion — abandoned by the church, forgotten 
by the king, and deserted by God and man. 

A series of articles or propositions, artfully digested by 
Cauchon from the replies of Joan to the questions addressed her 
upon her trial, was sent to the University of Paris ; its opinion 
was asked upon them, and upon the punishment befitting the 
crimes of which the prisoner was accused. The answer arrived 
about the middle of May. The Faculty of Divinity pronounced 
Joan possessed with a devil, impious towards her parents, and 
steeped in Christian blood. The Faculty of Law, more moderate 
in its views, placed two restrictions upon its sentence of culpa- 
bility : first, in case she persisted ; and second, in case she were 
unquestionably in her right mind. Thus fortified and sustained, 
the more fanatic of the English party clam Dred for her immediate 



JOANDARC. 245 

execution ; but, in the meantime, the people of Rouen had begun 
to regard her sufferings with a certain degree of sympathy, and 
Cauchon and his satellites were intimidated. They resolved to 
make one last attempt to draw from her a sufficient confession 
to disgrace Charles and his cause, and then to condemn her to 
imprisonment for life ; hoping to satisfy the English by a retrac- 
tion, which would, so to speak, uncrown the king; and to indulge 
the people, by sparing her life. They prepared and performed, 
on Monday in Whitsun week, the horrible historical comedy 
known as the Parody of St. Ouen. 

In a graveyard behind the severe monastic church of that 
name, which is still to be seen as it then existed, two scaffolds 
were erected. Upon one, Cardinal Winchester, representing the 
English king, the two judges, Cauchon and Estivet, and thirty- 
three assessors, took their seats ; upon the other were the ser- 
vants and ministers of the Inquisition with their instruments of 
torture ; notaries and scribes to take down the confessions wrung 
from the victim, and a preacher, instructed to deliver an address 
of solemn admonition. Below them, in the midst of a populace 
appalled by the hideous spectacle, stood an executioner, ready 
with his cart to remove the body when the torture should have 
done its work. Joan, in male attire, chained hand and foot, and 
bound by an iron girdle to a stake, contemplated the scene in 
silent agony. The preacher, Gruillaume Erard, a famous doctor of 
the University, commenced the ceremony by a violent apostrophe 
to Joan, in which he spared neither invective nor calumny. She 
did not deign to reply as long as his charges concerned her alone. 
At last, he attacked the king. "Yea, verily," he said, shaking 
his finger in holy denunciation, "yea, Jehanne, not only thou, 
but thou and thy king are the partisans of heresy and schism." 
Joan turned upon him with startling ferocity : "By my trust in 
God," she exclaimed, her eye, but now dimmed by suffering, 
dilating with sudden splendor, "I swear that the king is the 
noblest Christian amongst all Christians j he loves the church 



246 JOANDARC. 

and the faith, and he is not what you say !" " Silence !" shouted 
Cauchon, at the same time preparing to read the act of condem- 
nation. "I am willing to submit to the Pope," said Joan. "The 
Pope is too far off," returned the bishop, and commenced his 
reading. 

While this was progressing, Erard, the populace, and even 
the executioner, besought Joan to have pity upon herself, and to 
sign the form of retraction which was already drawn up. Cau- 
chon, deeming her retraction of more value to the English than 
her death, stopped his reading, in the hope that Joan would 
yield. Winchester's secretary angrily accused him of favoring 
her escape ; the consistent churchman retorted by giving the 
lie direct. While this edifying scene was taking place upon 
one scaffold, Joan was yielding to the intercessions of those 
who surrounded her upon the other. " Abjure, or you will 
be burned at the stake," said Erard. " Sign the retraction," 
urged a compassionate layman; "it is merely a confession of 
your own ignorance in matters of doctrine, not a disavowal of 
your cause or an incrimination of your own sincerity." " Yery 
well, then, I will sign it." The cardinal's secretary drew from 
his sleeve the form of retraction. It contained six lines — that 
which was afterwards published as her act of apostasy consisting 
of as many pages. He offered her a pen ; the poor girl blushed 
with shame, for the hand which had wielded the sword of 
St. Catherine had never been taught to write. She took the 
pen awkwardly between her fingers, and traced, under the direc- 
tion of the bystanders, a circular figure, adding, of her own will, 
a cross, the emblem of her martyrdom. Her sentence was then 
read : " Jehanne, we condemn you, in our grace and moderation, 
to pass the rest of your life in prison, lamenting your sins, 
eating the bread of suffering and drinking the water of anguish." 
She accepted the woman's garments offered her in token of 
submission, and was led back to the castle amid the hootings 
of the soldiers, disappointed of their prey. 



JOAN D ARC. 247 

The English vented their rage upon the judges and assessors 
in a more summary manner. They had come to see a sorceress 
burned, and were ill pleased with what was given them instead — 
a strip of parchment with unmeaning ink scratches at the foot 
of it. They hurled stones and dead men's bones at the cardinal 
and the priests, and as the latter descended in confusion from the 
scaffold, held their drawn swords at their throats. The most 
moderate among them contented themselves with oaths and 
menaces. The affrighted doctors escaped, saying by way of 
conciliation: " Never fear, we will have her again, in one way or 
another." 

The method which they adopted to redeem this engagement, 
was perhaps the most infamous in a long catalogue of infamies. 
The successes of Charles VII., and the narrow escape of Bedford 
between Rouen and Paris, exasperated the English beyond 
measure. There was no hope for them, they said, as long as 
breath remained in Joan's body ; chained and incarcerated as 
she was, she still continued her pernicious office, and by her 
magical arts, sustained the royal army in the field. On the 
morning of Trinity Sunday, her jailers, acting upon instructions 
they had received, removed the woman's garments which she 
had assumed in token of obedience, and emptying her former 
habiliments out of a bag, told her to put them on. "Gentle- 
men," she replied, u you know I am forbidden ; no, truly, I will 
not." She resisted till noon ; then, compelled to rise, and 
having no other clothing, she dressed herself in male attire. 
Cauchon was immediately summoned, and, upon his arrival, 
roundly upbraided her for this forced relapse. Disdaining to 
explain, she boldly accepted the situation, saying that as long as 
she was guarded by men, she would wear men's garments ; but 
that if she were placed in a prison where she could be safe 
from violence, she would wear women's clothes, and do every- 
thing which the church could desire. 

Cauchon, at last convinced that nothing but the life of Joan 



248 JOAN D ARC. 

Dare could satisfy the party of which he was the instrument, 
convoked an assembly of assessors, priests, and legists, admitting 
even three physicians to the tribunal thus illegally organized. 
Their opinion was asked and given — to the effect that Joan 
be brought before them, and the act of recantation again read to 
her. This Oauchon thought could not be done in safety to them- 
selves, in the midst of the agitation which reigned in the army. 
A sentence of death at the stake was hastily passed, the wily 
ecclesiastics, who formed a majority, delegating its execution to 
the civil authorities, and thus with the cunning of Pontius Pilate, 
washing their hands of the responsibility. 

The next morning, at eight o'clock, a confessor, brother 
Martin Ladvenu, visited Joan in her cell, and announced to 
her that she was that day to pass through the fiery ordeal. 
Poor Joan — whom it would be a cruel error to regard, in this 
crisis of her calamities, as either a saint or an envoy from 
heaven, or as anything more than a friendless though heroic 
girl — stretching forth her pinioned arms and throwing back her 
head in agony, exclaimed, " Alas ! alas ! that I should be so hor- 
ribly and cruelly treated, that my body, pure and unstained by 
corruption, should be consumed and reduced to ashes ! Oh ! I 
would rather be beheaded seven times over than be burned ! I 
appeal to God, the judge of all, against the wrongs and outrages 
they inflict upon me !" 

When her calmness returned, she confessed herself and then 
asked permission to commune. The priest consulted Cauchon 
upon the propriety of the step, and was instructed to take 
the eucharist to the prison, but in secret and without candles. 
Thus the consistent bishop, having condemned Joan to death for 
heresy, schism and backsliding, accorded her all that the church 
could have granted her had she been in full communion ! It 
would be quite useless to look for such amazing incoherence any- 
where else than in a prince of the church. The confessor com 
plained to the ecclesiastical authorities of Rouen that he had 



r 






JUKN DARC, 



JOANDARC. 249 

been ordered to mutilate the ceremony and perform it without 
light. They sent, in tacit condemnation of the bishop's course, 
the Host and a number of tapers, and thus enabled the wretched 
convict to partake of her last communion. Noticing Cauchon 
among the spectators, Joan said, in accents of mild reproach, 
" Bishop, bishop, I die at your hands !" 

It was now nine o'clock. Joan was decently dressed in female 
attire and placed between her confessor and a lay officer upon 
the condemned cart, which was drawn by four horses. An Au- 
gustine monk, named Isambart, followed her on foot to the 
place of execution, praying for her soul. A guard of eight hun- 
dred English soldiers, armed with lances and drawn swords, 
accompanied the dread procession. Joan had never expected 
death till now ; she had never realized the imminence of her dan- 
ger. She might reasonably anticipate a rescue by the king 
whom she had so zealously served ; or failing human aid, she 
might look for deliverance to the saints and angels whose behests 
she had so obediently executed. At last, despairing of either 
deliverance or miracle, she said, wailing rather than speaking, 
"Oh! Rouen, Rouen ! must I then die here !" 

The scene of the sacrifice was the Fish Market of Rouen. In 
the open space formed by the intersection of several streets, three 
scaffolds had been erected ; upon one was the episcopal throne 
of the English cardinal, surrounded by seats prepared for the 
lesser ecclesiastical dignitaries. Upon the other were the judges 
who had condemned her, the baillie or civil officer who was to 
authorize her execution, and the preacher who was to exhort her 
before her death. The third, built of stone and plaster, support- 
ed the funeral pile. This was of enormous and unusual height, 
and formed of wood carefully dried. There was a motive in this 
lavish expenditure of fuel — to prevent the executioner from 
abridging the torture and relieving the sufferer as he was accus- 
tomed to do — though by what means is not stated — when the 
dimensions of the pyre permitted, sparing them the flame. The 



250 JOANDARC. 

spectators of Joan's martyrdom were to witness a complete and 
consummated agony. The horrible rites commenced by a ser- 
mon delivered by Nicolas Midy, upon the following text : 1 Cor. 
xii. 26 : " And when one member suffers, all the other members 
suffer with it ;■" the application being that the church, ailing in 
all its members from the sinfulness of Joan, was about to cut off 
the offending member, as the only means of cure. He finished 
with the formula, " Depart in peace, the church can no longer 
defend you, and abandons you to the secular arm." The church, 
which had condemned Joan to the stake, and had made over to 
the civil power the privilege of applying the flame, hoped to 
shuffle off the responsibility by this cruel excuse. 

Joan fell upon her knees and clasped her hands. She in- 
voked in pathetic accents the compassion and the prayers of 
her judges and tormentors, freely offering them her pardon, 
and imploring Heaven to open the gates of Paradise to the 
bishop and the cardinal, her two arch-persecutors. She 
called upon the priests around her to say one mass each for 
the repose of her soul, and then, apostrophizing St. Michael 
and St. Catherine, entreated them not to desert her in this 
awful strait. The spectacle was more than many of those 
who had come to witness it could endure ; the sight of one so 
young, so beautiful, and, notwithstanding the fulminations of the 
church, so innocent, standing upon the verge of death under cir- 
stances so appalling, and yet with a resignation so touching, 
moved some to tears and others to flight. Winchester and 
Beauvais wept, several of the assessors fainted outright, while 
many of their colleagues hurried from the scene as if it and they 
had been accursed. Joan then confessed herself aloud, regret- 
ting the errors and presumptions — if such they were — of which, 
in all sincerity, she might have been guilty. The chronicles of 
the time, without asserting that she repented of her devotion to 
a regardless country and an ungrateful king, permit such a con- 
clusion to be drawn. In this fearful moment, she must have 



JOAN DARC. 251 

keenly realized at what price glory and earthly immortality are 
won, and have looked back with sickening heart from the stake 
of Rouen to the cottage and pastures of Domremy. 

The judges, for an instant moved from their propriety, quickly 
recovered their equanimity, and the bishop read the act of con- 
demnation. He concluded by hypocritically " praying the secular 
arm of justice to temper its sentence and spare the prisoner both 
the pain of death and the mutilation of her body." If this was 
to mislead history and abuse posterity, it was labor thrown away, 
for no sentence was ever passed upon Joan by a temporal tri- 
bunal. She died the victim and sacrifice of the church, passing 
directly from the hands of the priests to those of the executioner. 
Before being led to the scaffold, she implored the bystanders 
to give her a cross, the external symbol of the divine atonement 
and of human redemption. An English soldier took two broken 
branches, not even divested of their bark, and tying them roughly 
together in the form of a cross, handed them to her. She 
received the emblem devoutly, clasping it to her bosom, even 
opening her garments and pressing it to her very flesh. But 
this did not satisfy her, and she begged hard for the cross belong- 
ing to the neighboring church of St. Sauveur. Isambart and 
an attendant named Massieu prevailed upon the clerk of the 
parish to lend it to them for this pious office. These delays 
exasperated the English soldiers, and their captains, losing all 
patience, rudely took the confessor to task, saying, "Hallo, 
priest, are you going to make us dine here !" Resolved to wait 
no longer and to dispense with the warrant of the secular officer, 
the baillie, they ordered two sergeants to ascend the scaffold, 
to tear her from the hands of the priests and drag her to the 
place of torment. This they did with such ferocious zeal, though 
she offered no resistance, that many of the assessors who had 
been before unmoved, started in horror from their seats, unable 
to see the rest. 

Joan was spared no humiliation. The ignominious mitre of 



252 



JOAN D ARC 



the inquisition, bearing the words Heretique, Relapse, Apos- 
tate, Ydolastre, was placed upon her head. In front of the 
pile was an inscription couched in words setting forth the crimes 
for which she suffered : 

" Jeanne, menteresse, pernicieuse, abuseresse du peuple, 
devineresse, superstitieuse, blasphemeresse de dleit, mal creant 

DE LA LOY DE JeSUS-ChRIST, VANTERESSE, YDOLASTRE, CRUELLE, 
DISSOLUE, INVOCATRICE DE DIABLES, SCHISMATIQUE ET HERETIQUE." 

She was bound to the fatal stake, and the executioner ap- 
plied the torch. She saw the fire and shuddered in all her limbs. 
" Ah, Rouen, Rouen," she said, " I fear thou wilt one day suffer 
for my death !" The flames ascended. Ladvenu was still at 
Joan's side. The heroic girl, forgetting her own peril in her 
fears for her confessor's safety, implored him to depart. She 
besought him to hold the cross on high that she might see it 
through the flames, and to exhort her, with holy words, till 
death came to her relief. The fire glowed amid the crackling 
logs, and the spreading sheets of flame at last seized upon the 
garments of the victim. " Water ! water !" she cried, in the last 
agony of nature. The blaze roared and wrapped itself in hissing 
folds about her. Uttering the single word Jesus, her head 
dropped upon her shoulders. The chroniclers of the period 
express the hope and belief, in which the sympathetic reader 
will be glad to join, that heaven, in its mercy, recalled the spirit 
of the martyr before it was divorced by fire. 

The heart and viscera of Joan Dare long resisted the destruc- 
tive action of the flames, although the executioner heaped sulphui 
and charcoal upon them, and drenched the inflammable mass 
with rivers of oil. The English cardinal ordered her uncon- 
sumed remains to be swept into the Seine, in order that no 
pious hand might ever give them Christian burial, and that no 
busy antiquary might collect for future worship the charred 
bones and scattered ashes of the martyr. 

The horrible spectacle was not witnessed without emotion by 



JOAN DARC. 253 

the priests or the soldiers. An English archer who had sworn 
that he would throw a fagot into the blaze, fainted as he did so, 
and was removed from the ground. On recovering his senses he 
averred that he had seen a white pigeon fly out of the flames. 
Others had seen the name of Jesus written in the air. Others 
repented and acknowledged Christ. One of the assessors who 
had been the most zealous in condemning Joan, exclaimed, 
" Would to God that my soul were where I firmly believe hers 
to be !" Jean Tressart, one of the English king's secretaries, 
left the place of execution violently agitated, exclaiming, " We 
are lost and undone ; we have burned a saint." The executioner 
went the same evening to seek out Isambart, and after confes- 
sion, asked in trembling accents, " Will God ever forgive me?" 

With the gradual dispersion of the English, and the extension 
and development of a French national sentiment, the party of 
Joan increased till it embraced the whole country, and those who 
had participated in her condemnation were pointed out with scorn 
and reprobation. The chronicles of the period mention from 
time to time the violent or miserable deaths of those who had 
persecuted her. A relentless fate seemed to pursue them to the 
grave, and in many cases, beyond it. Cauchon died suddenly 
while under the hands of his barber ; his remains, excommuni- 
cated by Pope Calixtus III., were disinterred some years after- 
wards and thrown into the public streets ; the vice-inquisitor, 
Jean le Maistre, disappeared mysteriously from off the face of 
the earth ; Joseph d'Estivet, associate judge with Cauchon, was 
found dead upon a dunghill in the suburbs of Rouen ; Loyseleur 
was struck with apoplexy in a church at Basle ; Nicolas Midy, 
the preacher at the stake, perished a shunned and odious leper ; 
and Henry YL, in whose name and behalf Joan Dare was slain, 
was twice dethroned, and died in the Tower of London. 

In 1456, the war, which had lasted one hundred and fifteen 
years, was brought to a close by the expulsion of the English 
army. Charles VII. now made a tardy reparation for the royal 



254 JOANDARC. 

indifference he had manifested to the fate of his deliverer. At the 
suit of Joan's aged mother and her two surviving brothers, Jacques 
and Pierre, he ordered a second trial to be held, for the purpose 
of rehabilitating her memory and proclaiming her innocence. 
The solemn ceremony took place before a bench of bishops, and 
under the authority of Pope Calixtus III. By a happy chance, 
though twenty-five years had elapsed since her death, nearly 
all whose testimony would be valuable in establishing her in- 
nocence and reversing the former sentence, had been spared 
to give it : — Pasquerel, her almoner, now far advanced in years ; 
Dunois, the fire of his eye somewhat quenched by age ; Dau- 
ion, her equerry and faithful guardian ; Jean de Metz and 
Poulengy, her companions-in-arms ; Martin Ladvenu, her con- 
fessor at the stake ; Isambart, who heard her call upon Jesus 
in the flames ; Massieu, who brought her the cross from the 
church of St. Sauveur, and a numerous throng of her early 
friends in the village where she was born. 

From this evidence — against which the partisans of the 
English have never been able to say aught, except that it was 
somewhat moulded and influenced by the reaction of the pe- 
riod — we have derived a large portion of the preceding details, 
and have, therefore, no occasion to repeat it here. The inno- 
cence of the Pucelle of the crimes attributed to her — impiety, 
sorcery, idolatry — was solemnly proclaimed by the Archbishop 
of Rouen on the 7th of July. The clergy went in procession 
to the scenes of the Parody and of the Execution, and per- 
formed an expiatory service upon the spots profaned by those 
two ecclesiastical crimes. 

The church, the state, literature and the fine arts have vied 
with each other in doing honor to the memory of the Maid of 
Orleans. The present generation has witnessed the purchase of 
Joan's cottage — such as it now exists, enlarged and, as it were, 
lost in the more modern constructions which inclose it — by the 
French government, for the purposes of a girls' school: the 



JOAN D ARC. 255 

erection of a statue, due to the chisel of a king's daughter, upon 
the grand staircase of the HOtel de Ville at Orleans ; and in 1855, 
the inauguration, in the Place du Martroi, in the same city, of an 
admirable equestrian statue of the warrior saint. The festivities 
on this occasion lasted four days ; music, science, sculpture, elo- 
quence, architecture, were pressed into the grateful service. 
The historical edifices in which the city abounds were brilliantly 
decorated with the trappings and hangings peculiar to the fif- 
teenth century. The violin of Sivori was called upon to illustrate, 
in harmonious measure, the career of the heroine, from the green 
fields of Domremy to the red ordeal at Rouen. The bells of the 
Tourelles pealed forth, at early dawn, the same chimes with 
which, in 1429, they had announced the deliverance of the city. 
At night, a Historical Cavalcade, armed and equipped in imita- 
tion of Joan's victorious troops, made the round of the city, fol- 
lowing the route taken by her four hundred and twenty-six 
years before. The illustrious knights who had fought by her 
side were represented by their descendants — Dunois, Daulon, 
Jean Debrosses, Lahire. A grand mass was performed, not by 
an ecclesiastical prince, but by the pastor of a village church, the 
curate of Domremy. On the fourth day, the statue was unveiled 
and delivered to the people, amid the din of voices, the roaring 
of cannon, and the clamor of bells. 

We have sought to narrate the story and interpret the life 
of Joan Dare in a manner to call for little elucidation beyond 
that which the mind of the reader will readily suggest. The fact 
cannot be concealed, that in France the prevailing tone of opin- 
ion, and the whole influence of the church tend to establish 
the belief that she was not only a beatified saint, but a commis- 
sioned envoy. The annual panegyrics pronounced at Orleans 
invariably proceed upon the ground that her character is insus- 
ceptible of subdivision, and that she was either — in the broadest 
sense of those terms — a saint or a charlatan. Between the two 
conclusions the patriot and the Catholic can hardly hesitate, and 



256 JOANDARC 

the mass of the French nation have accepted a theory which, 
while it gratifies their pride and flatters their sentiment of vene- 
ration, grants them the satisfaction of a mystery accounted for, 
and spares them the discomfort of a marvel unexplained. His- 
tory, however, demands a more conscientious and disinterested 
verdict than priests and panegyrists can be expected to render, 
and it is fortunate that among the students who have made Joan 
Dare their theme, there are many who are neither churchmen 
nor even Catholics. Neither Lamartine, nor Michelet, nor Henri 
Martin, accept for an instant the opinion which clothes Joan 
Dare in the robes of the celestial emissary ; and they refuse to 
compromise the dignity of history by the puerilities of the popu- 
lar imagination. That her marvellous career may be satisfacto- 
rily interpreted without recourse to the theory of a direct divine 
interposition, a few words will suffice to show. 

Joan Dare possessed in an extraordinary degree three 
exceptional qualities — Love of Country, Faith, Enthusiasm. 
The sentiment of patriotism was active and vital in her to a 
degree never before witnessed in the land which gave her 
birth. France was till then an assemblage of provinces, a vast 
chaos of fiefs, a confused federation of vassals, independent of 
each other and rivals of the crown ; in Joan's heart beat the 
first pulsation which throbbed for all alike, embracing Burgun- 
dians, Provencaux, Bretons, in one common brotherhood. Love 
of country lay at the base of her character, and was the main- 
spring of the delicate but sturdy mechanism of her being. It 
was, in short, the motive of her life, and it urged and spurred 
her to action with an intensity which, from the fact that it 
was unusual, has seemed to many unnatural. Still, though Joan 
possessed the incentive, she would have been powerless without 
the machinery ; fortunately she had the means as well as the 
motive ; and this she found in her Faith — her belief in her 
own inspiration, whether she were inspired or not. The faith of 
Joan Dare was more than as a grain of mustard seed, and when 



JOAN D ARC. 257 

she controlled and wielded men, when she resuscitated and 
saved an empire, she did more than remove moantains or com- 
mand sycamines to be planted in the sea. 

That Joan Dare should have been deceived by her imagina- 
tion, and should have been herself a convert to her own illu- 
sions, is not to be marvelled at. Stronger heads than hers have 
been the dupes of similar conscientious impostures. Numa 
Pompilius listened to the counsels of an imaginary divinity whom 
he called Egeria, but who was nothing more than a personifica- 
tion of his own natural inspiration. Socrates heard and obeyed 
the monitions of an inward voice which he was accustomed to re- 
gard and to consult as his familiar genius. Joan Dare was simi- 
larly wrought upon, with the difference that her impressions 
were more violent and the forms assumed by her fancy more tan- 
gible. Passionately preoccupied with one idea, endowed with 
an imagination of extreme activity, called upon to realize keenly 
the calamities of her country, educated to regard her persecuted 
king as the lieutenant and vicegerent of God on earth, inhabiting 
a spot picturesque in its scenery and romantic in its legends, ac- 
customed from childhood to tread and play upon fairy ground, 
taught by the annual exorcisms of the curate to look upon 
the dryads and watersprites as very substantial and authentic be- 
ings, and, above all, haunted by the prediction of the enchanter, 
and thinking and reasoning herself into the belief that she was 
the commissioned and foreordained heroine of the prophecy — it 
is not extraordinary, or rather, it is not impossible, that she 
should have abandoned herself to revery and day-dreams, that in 
her moments of ecstasy she should have been beset by visions 
and have held conversations with the saints. With their several 
attributes and positions in glory her religious habits and associa- 
tions had rendered her familiar, and the language which she 
ascribed to each was such as the object of it might have em- 
ployed without discredit. It is not wonderful, either, that 
she should have interpreted these creations of her fancy as direct 



258 JOANDARC. 

communications from on high. There is nothing marvellous in a 
dream, nor is it marvellous for persons in a certain mental con- 
dition to dream awake ; and there is nothing which should 
astonish a reader properly informed of the character and educa- 
tion of Joan Dare, in the construction which she placed upon her 
waking dreams. The fact once conceded that, though claiming 
the estate of a divine envoy, she was self-appointed and commis- 
sioned, there is nothing in her subsequent career which is not 
equally susceptible of explanation. Prompted by patriotism, 
endowed and qualified by faith, sustained by enthusiasm, she 
was still marvellously aided by the credulity of the age in which 
she lived. Upon this subject, a few words will not be out of 
place. 

Like all characters of spontaneous growth, springing from 
the emergencies or exigencies of the moment, Joan Dare was in 
perfect harmony with the circumstances under which she was to 
act. She would have been powerless in a material and incredu- 
lous age, but in the fifteenth century she was in unison with the 
fashion of men's minds and their habits of thought. Many of her 
battles were won, and certainly the deliverance of Orleans was ef- 
fected — not by the vigor of her arm nor by the skill of her tactics 
— but by the paralyzing effect upon the enemy of their belief in 
her divinity. The English saw the saints in the air descending 
to battle ; they heard the emissary of heaven, a girl in her teens 
bearing the banner of the cross, thundering at their very gates. 
It is not to be wondered at that they often permitted the strug- 
gle to go by default, and refused to measure swords with the re- 
doubtable St. Michael. This was not a belief forced upon them 
in moments of panic or at the ghostly hour of midnight, and 
abandoned as childish upon the return of reason or with the 
rising of the sun. The English were consistent throughout ; 
while Joan was their enemy, she was a saint and a leader of 
saints ; when she became their captive, she was a sorceress and 
in league with the fiend. The character of her mission and the 



JO AN D ARC. . 2o l J 

source of her power changed in their eyes, but not their belief in 
the existence of the power itself. They had dreaded her sanc- 
tity while free, and they exorcised her as a witch when she fell 
into their hands. That her influence over them was that of a 
person acknowledged to possess supernatural gifts, the whole 
history of her life and times abundantly shows. 

There are no events in her career which positively require 
the intervention of a supernatural explanation, or must else 
be left unexplained. It has been said that her recognition of the 
dauphin at Chinon could hardly be characterized as an exercise of 
perspicacity. Still it need not be regarded as miraculous. The 
mind, in certain phases, may, and often does, become possessed 
of a sense finer than any sense of the material body — the sense 
of instinct ; Joan and the king were situated towards each 
other in a manner calculated to awaken in her this dormant 
sense. She, inspired, chosen and sent, as she believed, to deli- 
ver the country and crown the king ; he, dauphin by the grace 
God, the inheritor of a divine right, heir to a consecrated ma- 
jesty — the two in presence, the king disguised and the envoy 
told to seek. She who had seen saints could not fail to recog- 
nize the king. The marvel would have been had she not re- 
cognized him. She became clairvoyant at a moment when it 
would have been weakness to remain blind. Fatal it would 
have been, as well, for had she seen with the eyes of sense 
merely, her epopee would never have been enacted and her 
story never told. 

Were history written by women and not by men — with 
whatever shortcomings we should have to reproach the historians 
— Joan Dare, at least, would have been better understood and 
her life and mission more intelligibly interpreted. We should 
have been reminded that patriotism influences men in one 
manner and women in another ; that it acts through different 
channels and touches different chords, according to the sex 
of those upon whom it operates. Men rise to lofty heights 



260 JOAN DARC 

in virtue, heroism, moral grandeur ; women in enthusiasm, fa- 
naticism, inspiration. Love of country produces among men, 
Cincinnatus, Alfred, Washington — pure, unselfish, symmetrical ; 
among women, Yittoria Colonna, Madame Roland, Charlotte 
Cor day, Joan Dare — romantic, devoted, marvellous. Men are 
governed by the intellect and sway their fellow-men by reason ; 
women are wrought upon through the imagination and produce 
their effects by the heart and the affections. With all her patri- 
otism, Joan Dare would have been powerless, had she been con- 
demned to employ, to save France, the means and resources 
which, at a later period, saved America. Women have a fibre 
more in the heart and a cell less in the brain than men ; they 
cannot, therefore, be measured by the same standard nor 
weighed in the same balance. 

Let us claim Joan Dare as a mortal, and let us judge her 
as a woman. Though doubtless, in one sense, the most remark- 
able of created beings, she was still human, and of the race of 
Adam. The calendar of Rome is rich and full to overflowing ; 
the saints can spare St. Joan, mankind cannot spare Joan Dare. 



' s Sli%i 





ISABELLA DF CASTILE 



ISABELLA OF CASTILE 



Isabella, afterwards Queen of Spain, was born a*. Madrigal 
in the kingdom of Castile, on the 22d of April, 1451. Her 
father, John II., died three years later, after a long and 
inglorious reign, lamenting that he had not been born beneath 
a roof of thatch, instead of under the dome of a palace. His 
eldest son, Henry IT., succeeded to the throne, and Isabella 
retired, with her mother, to the village of Aravelo, where she 
lived for many years in tranquil obscurity. During her early 
youth, she was repeatedly sought in marriage, and one of her 
first suitors, though unsuccessful then, was he for whom fate 
ultimately reserved her hand — Ferdinand of Aragon. Twice 
betrothed and twice released, she was next offered to a man 
known to be stained with almost every crime — Don Pedro Griron, 
grand-master of the order of Calatrava, her selfish brother thus 
hoping to conciliate a powerful and troublesome family. The 
Pope released Don Pedro from his vow of celibacy, and mag- 
nificent preparations were made for the ceremony. 

Isabella, having at this period attained her sixteenth year, 

refused to consent to the sacrifice. Her brother assured her 

that if, on the appointed day, she proved refractory, he would 

adopt compulsory measures Isabella, indignant and resolved, 

261 



2G2 ISABELLA. 

withdrew to her room, where she abstained from food and sleep, 
and implored Heaven, upon her knees, to take her life rather 
than subject her to this ignominy. Her bosom-friend, Beatriz 
de Bobadilla, whose reliance seemed to be more strongly fixed 
on material agencies, exclaimed, drawing a knife from her 
bosom, " God will not permit it, neither will I!" She swore 
she would plunge the weapon into Don Pedro's heart, if he 
persisted in his intention. The valiant lady was spared the 
necessity of executing her threat, by the convenient death of the 
grand-master, while on his way to Madrid, where the ceremony 
was to be performed. 

At this period, a civil war broke out in Castile between the 
partisans of the king and the disaffected nobles, the latter 
desiring to dethrone Henry and give the crown to his half- 
brother Alfonzo. The question was referred to the issue of 
a battle, to be fought on the plains of Olmedo. The contest 
lasted three hours, with no decisive result, except that it kindled 
a taste for carnage, and plunged the whole country into the 
horrors of civil war. Churches became barracks, and palaces 
castles ; pitched battles were fought in every street, and blood 
and conflagration spread over the kingdom. The death of 
Alfonzo, by poison or the plague, totally disconcerted the 
schemes of the allied nobles. They could hardly hope to con- 
tinue their league without a leader, and if it were dissolved, 
they would be exposed to Henry's vengeance. They cast their 
eyes on Isabella, the own sister of Alfonzo, now in her seven- 
teenth year, and living, since her brother's death, in a monastery 
at Arvila. She was here visited by the Archbishop of Toledo, 
the envoy of the confederates, and besought by him to assume 
the authority lately held by Alfonzo, and to allow herself to 
be proclaimed Queen of Castile. After due reflection, she 
refused, saying that " while her brother lived, none other had 
a right to the crown ; that the country had been divided long 
enough under the rule of two contending monarchs ; and that 



ISABELLA 263 

the death of Alftxnzo might, perhaps, be interpreted into an 
indication from Heaven of its disapprobation of their cause." 
She professed herself willing and anxious, however, to effect a 
reconciliation between the king and the confederates, and such a 
reconciliation was ultimately negotiated, the conditions being 
that Henry should grant an amnesty for past offences ; that he 
should repudiate his licentious queen and disinherit his daughter ; 
that the principalities of the Asturies should be settled upon 
Isabella, who should then be formally recognized as heiress to 
the crowns of Castile and Leon. A formal interview took place 
between Henry and Isabella, in ratification of this agreement ; 
the king kissed his sister affectionately, and solemnly declared 
her his successor. The cortes were convened in forty days and 
their sanction was unanimously conferred upon her pretensions 
to the crown. 

The number of Isabella's suitors now very naturally increased. 
The King of Portugal sought her in marriage for himself, while 
the King of France, Louis XL, asked her for his brother. 
Edward IY. of England solicited her hand, but whether for 
himself or his brother Gloster, afterwards Richard III., the 
chronicles of the time do not clearly state. Ferdinand of 
Aragon, heir to the throne of that kingdom, was the favored 
aspirant. Isabella easily justified in her own mind the propriety 
of such a choice, by dwelling upon the advantages of a union 
which should unite two contiguous and homogeneous nations. 
While separated, they were powerless ; combined, they might 
claim a part, perhaps a preponderance, in the balance of na- 
tions. Ferdinand was in his early prime, and, in the stirring 
events amid which he had passed his youth, had displayed valor 
and discretion. 

A number of the dissatisfied nobles who had espoused the 

cause of Henry's disinherited daughter, Joanna, now resolutely 

attempted to baffle Isabella's plans. The king even was induced 

to listen to their intrigues. Isabella, indignant at his duplicity, 

IT 



264 ISABELLA. 

resolved to conclude her marriage with Ferdinand without con- 
sulting her brother further. The contract was signed by 
Ferdinand on the 7th of January, 1469. He engaged to respect 
the laws and usages of Castile ; to reside in that kingdom ; to 
alienate no property belonging to the crown ; to prosecute the 
war against the Moors, and to respect King Henry. In the mean- 
time, Isabella's actions were closely watched by the spies of the 
adverse party. Her very household servants were corrupted, 
and her slightest movements reported. The king, finding the 
preparations for the wedding so far advanced, sent a force to 
Madrigal to lay violent hands upon the person of his sister, but, 
fortunately, their arrival was anticipated by a forced march of 
cavalry to her relief, under the orders of the Archbishop of 
Toledo. Isabella was hurried off to the friendly city of Yalla- 
dolid, where she was to await the coming of the bridegroom. 

Ferdinand, however, did not, at that moment, possess the 
means of effecting a hostile entrance into Castile, his father being 
engaged in a harassing and exhausting war with a rebellious 
province. He resolved to make the adventurous attempt in 
disguise. He set out, accompanied by half a dozen attendants ; 
they travelled, principally by night, in the garb of merchants ; 
the prince waited upon them at table, and, at the halting places, 
fed and watered the mules. After a journey of forty-eight 
hours, they arrived at a castle, the first point upon the route 
occupied by troops in Isalella's interest. Thus protected and 
reinforced, Ferdinand easily reached Dueflas, in the kingdom 
of Leon, where he was met by throngs of nobles and soldiers, 
assembled to espouse his cause and render homage to his rank. 

The following description of Ferdinand and Isabella, at the 
epoch of this interview, we quote from Mr. Prescott: ''Ferdinand 
was at this time in the eighteenth year of his age. His com- 
plexion was fair, though somewhat bronzed by constant exposure 
to the sun ; his eye quick and cheerful ; his forehead ample and 
approaching to baldness. His muscular and well-proportioned 



ISABELLA. 265 

frame was in rigorated by the toils of war, and by the chivalrous 
exercises in vhich he delighted. He was one of the best horse- 
men in his c )urt, and excelled in field-sports of every kind. His 
voice was somewhat sharp, but he possessed a fluent eloquence, 
and when bj had a point to carry, his address was courteous and 
even insinuating. He secured his health by extreme temperance 
in his diet, and by such habits of activity that it was said he 
seemed to find repose in business. Isabella was a year older 
than her lover. In stature she was somewhat above the middle 
size. Her complexion was fair ; her hair of a bright chestnut 
color, inclining to red ; and her mild, blue eye beamed with 
intelligence and sensibility. She was exceedingly beautiful : 
4 the handsomest lady/ says one of her household, 'whom I ever 
beheld, and the most gracious in her manners/ The portrait 
still existing of her in the royal palace, is conspicuous for an 
open symmetry of features, indicative of the natural serenity of 
temper and that beautiful harmony of intellectual and moral 
qualities which most distinguished her. She was dignified in 
her demeanor, and modest even to a degree of reserve. She 
spoke the Castilian language with more than usual elegance ; 
and early imbibed a relish for letters, in which she was superior 
to Ferdinand, whose education in this particular seems to have 
been neglected. It is not easy to obtain a dispassionate portrait 
?f Isabella. The Spaniards who revert to her glorious reign, are 
so smitten with her moral perfections, that even in depicting 
her personal, they borrow somewhat of the exaggerated coloring 
of romance." 

The marriage of the happy pair was solemnized on the 
19th of October, 1469. Both Ferdinand and Isabella were com- 
pelled to borrow money to defray their respective portions of the 
expenses. The ceremony was witnessed by two thousand per- 
sons, the highest in rank being the Admiral of Castile and the 
Archbishop of Toledo. The latter produced upon the occasion a 
spurious papal bull, authorizing the parties to marry, though 



266 ISABELLA. 

within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. He had forged 
this document in connection with the King of Aragon and Ferdi- 
nand, well aware that the Pope was fully committed to the cause 
of Henry, and would not have granted a genuine dispensation, 
juid that Isabella would not enter into a forbidden union, with- 
out believing herself authorized so to do. When, in later years, 
she discovered the imposture, she obtained an authentic bull 
from Sixtus IY. 

During the week following the marriage, Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella sent a message to Henry, informing him of the consumma- 
tion of their union, and asking his fraternal approbation. The 
unbrotherly king responded by avowing his determination to 
resist the pretensions of Isabella, by putting his daughter Jo- 
anna forward as his successor. Ambassadors were received 
from Louis XI. of France, and the princess, though but nine 
years of age, was betrothed, by proxy, to that sovereign's bro- 
ther, the Duke of Guienne. This accession of the influence of 
the French court to that of the crown of Castile alarmed many 
of the adherents of Isabella, and they hastened to acknowledge 
their allegiance to Joanna. In the meantime, the whole ter- 
ritory of Castile was a prey to the most frightful anarchy and 
civil war — the natural but fatal results of the license of the 
court, the corruption of the clergy, the imbecility of the gov- 
ernment, and the dispute in which the succession was involved. 
Isabella remained at Duenas, her husband being often absent 
to aid his father in his wars with the Catalans ; her discreet 
conduct and wise administration of her little court, convinced 
all who witnessed them that her ultimate triumph over her niece, 
her rival, would be the most auspicious event that could hap- 
pen to their country. Henry IY. died in December, 1474, 
without designating his successor. The previous action of the 
cortes, however, in doing homage to Isabella as the only heir 
to the crown, had settled this vexed question, and she was 
proclaimed queen at Segovia, on the morning of the 13th. 



ISABELLA. 267 

The principal grandees of the populous cities and provinces of 
the kingdom flocked to her standard and tendered her their 
homage and allegiance. 

Ferdinand soon returned from Aragon, and evinced a 
marked dissatisfaction with the bestowment of the royal pre- 
rogative upon his consort — a measure which involved his own 
degradation to a secondary rank. Arbitrators decided, however, 
after an examination of the subject, that the Salic law, exclud- 
ing females from the succession, did not obtain in Castile, 
although it did in Aragon ; that Isabella was heir to, and con- 
sequently queen proprietor of, the kingdom ; and that Ferdi- 
nand, if he were to possess any authority, could only obtain 
it through his wife. The offended prince, upon this verdict, 
declared he would go home to his father, but Isabella com- 
forted him by the assurance that his will should be hers, and 
that their interests should always be inseparable. Besides, his 
profile was to be stamped, in conjunction with hers, upon the 
metallic currency, and he was to add his signature to hers, 
upon public documents and letters patent. She moreover 
pleaded the maternal argument, that if a Salic law excluded her, 
it must, in the impartiality of its operation, likewise exclude 
their only child, a daughter. By such mollifying arguments 
did the Queen of Castile induce her discontented husband to 
acquiesce in the decision of the cortes. She now commenced 
her beneficent reign over a kingdom described, at the period 
of her accession, by the historian whom we have quoted, as 
11 dismembered by faction, the revenues squandered on worth- 
less parasites, the grossest violations of justice unredressed, 
public faith become a jest, the treasury bankrupt, the court a 
brothel, and private morals too loose and audacious to seek 
even the veil of hypocrisy ! Never had the fortunes of the 
kingdom reached so low an ebb since the great Saracen in- 
vasion." 

The last spark of opposition which the new sovereigns 



268 ISABELLA. 

encountered from the hostile pretensions of Joanna, was extin- 
guished by the great battle of Toro, fought between the Cas- 
tilians, under Ferdinand, and the Portuguese, under their 
king, Alfonzo. Isabella devoted herself night and day to the 
interests of her kingdom during the struggle. She dictated 
dispatches, performed long journeys on horseback, inspected 
citadels, reviewed disciplined troops, and drilled raw recruits. 
When the tidings of Ferdinand's triumph reached her, she 
ordered her court to go in procession to a suburban church, 
and set an example of royal humiliation by walking barefoot 
herself. A treaty of peace was signed with Portugal on the 
24th of September, 1479, and the war of the succession was 
closed. In the same year, the throne of Aragon, with its six 
dependencies, descended, by the death of the king, to Ferdi- 
nand, and thus, after a separation of four hundred years, Cas- 
tile and Aragon were again united under the same crown. 

Isabella now devoted herself to the elaboration of efficient 
schemes of reform. The administration of justice was en- 
forced by the introduction of rigid but impartial laws ; when 
they were resisted, she herself repaired to the scene of the 
rebellion, and witnessed their prompt execution. She organ- 
ized a force of two thousand military police, whose swift and 
unsparing justice restored the country, in the space of twenty- 
two years, to a condition of security it had never yet known. 
The privileges of the nobles were curtailed, grants made to 
them by previous sovereigns were revoked, and a sum of 
thirty million maravedis was annually economized. The aris- 
tocratic classes, in resisting these innovations, were made to 
feel severely the strength of the hand which now held the 
reins of government. The military orders were compelled to 
root out the corruptions which had crept into their organiza- 
tions ; the church of Rome was forced to abandon the prac- 
tice which it had usurped, of making appointments to vacant 
sees, and to cease its encroachments upon the lay tribunals. 



ISABELLA. 2G9 

The stagnation of trade, resulting from the misrule of pre- 
vious sovereigns and from the debasement of the currency, 
was met and combated by acts determining the standard of 
coins and affixing heavy penalties to the issuing of counter- 
feit money ; by the construction of roads and viaducts ; by 
punctual payment, on the part of the government, of its obli- 
gations ; and by the enactment of laws encouraging commerce 
and protecting the mercantile marine. The husbandman, no 
longer dreading the inroads of hostile bands upon his mead- 
ows, and the settlement of hereditary feuds amid his harvests, 
felt once more a stimulus to toil ; and the face of the coun- 
try soon bore witness, in the renewed vigor of its culture, to 
the wisdom of the measures of the queen. The court itself, 
following her admirable example, and repudiating the lessons 
of many generations of license, became the appropriate setting 
of the jewel of the crown. The wilderness once more blossomed 
as the rose. 

Desirous of fortifying her temporal power by calling to her 
aid the influence of spiritual authority, Isabella committed the 
lamentable error of promoting the religious intolerance and 
bigotry of her age, in listening to the importunate clamor of the 
clergy against the Jews ; she suffered her zeal in behalf of true 
religion to be so warped by her reverend advisers, that she was 
induced to solicit, from Pope Sixtus IV., a bull for the establish- 
ment of the Inquisition in Castile, in behalf of "the extirpation 
of heresy, for the glory of God and the exaltation of the Catholic 
faith. 7 ' The Holy Office was inaugurated at Seville in January, 
1481, and six Jewish victims were burned at the stake on 
the 6th of the month ; two hundred and ninety-eight convicted 
heretics suffered death by fire during the year in Seville ; the 
province of Andalusia itself furnishing, in the same space of 
time, two thousand martyrs to the flames, while seventeen thou- 
sand were either mulcted in property or civilly incapacitated 
We do not care to linger upon this deplorable page of Isabella'? 



270 ISABELLA. 

history; suffice it to say that the misguided queen, through the 
agency of her confessor, Torquemada, afterwards Inquisitor- 
General of Castile and Aragon, was concerned, directly or 
indirectly, in the burning of ten thousand men and women, 
and in the infliction of lesser, but still terrible, penalties upon 
one hundred thousand more. Great, indeed, must haye been the 
compensating merits of Isabella, transcendent must have been 
her services to civilization, to have outweighed, in the judgment 
of posterity, the atrocious wrongs inflicted upon her land by 
the most unholy of human institutions. 

Isabella had no sooner directed the vengeance of the state 
against one form of heresy, than she became possessed with an 
ardent desire to wage a similar war of extirpation against that 
more extensive and dangerous form — Mohammedanism. The 
Saracen empire in Spain, which had been founded in the middle 
of the eighth century, had shrunk, in the time of Isabella, 
within the limits of a single province, perhaps the fairest in 
the peninsula — Granada. Here the crescent had waved tri- 
umphantly since the year 711. Intercourse of a neutral, semi- 
amicable character had for many years been kept up between 
the two peoples. In 1476, Isabella required from the Moorish 
sovereign, upon the renewal of an existing truce, the payment 
of a tribute to which his predecessors had been accustomed to 
submit. He tartly replied that the mint of Granada had aban- 
doned the coinage of gold, and coined steel instead. The war, 
thus provoked, was commenced by the Moors late in the year 
1481, by an attack upon the Andalusian town of Zahara. The 
garrison was surprised, and the whole population, men. v/ ;/nen 
and children, were carried off slaves to the Moc/s, The 
Castilians revenged this loss by the capture of tb.» Moslem 
stronghold of Alhama; the city was then ecclesiastical './ purified, 
and its mosques were consecrated to the worship cf the true 
God. The green crops in the surrounding fields were destroyed, 
the vines uprooted and the trees felled to the earth. The eleven 



ISABELLA. 271 

years' war was fairly begun. Isabella issued orders fixing the 
quota of men sliaI supplies to be furnished by each province ; 
and she dotted the Mediterranean with the sails of a powerful 
fleet, commissioned to scour the Barbary coast and intercept all 
aid and comfort sent by the Moors of Africa. 

For four years the war continued, with varying success, and 
without a decisive action on either side. The foragers, of whom 
there were thirty thousand in Isabella's armies, made incursions 
in spring and autumn into the enemy's vineyards, pastures and 
wheat fields, devastating the face of nature, and destroying the 
works of man. Isabella, summoning engineers and military 
artisans from France and Germany, and pointing out to them 
the Moorish strongholds perched upon dizzy heights and defying 
her weak artillery, commanded them to forge cannon and other 
battering engines capable of reducing them. Gunpowder was 
imported from Sicily and Flanders. Camps were laid out, 
forges erected, commissaries appointed, and rigid systems of 
supply elaborated. Isabella soon possessed the finest artillery 
in Europe, though, viewed in the light of modern experience, 
it was of course rude and comparatively inefficient. An army 
of pioneers constructed the roads over which the trains proceeded. 
Such were the difficulties in levelling mountains, in felling trees, 
and in bridging torrents, that the average advance of the besieging 
army across the rugged sierras, was one mile a day. Isabella 
remained upon the frontier, informed by hourly couriers of the 
progress of events. She held the exclusive control of the com- 
missariat department, supplying her own army as well as such 
captured cities of the enemy as were surrounded with trampled 
harvests. She established and supported, at her own expense, 
a hospital in the camp — the first on record. Everywhere, in 
every department of the war, her influence was powerfully felt, 
and vigor was infused into every artery of the service by the 
contagious effect of her own inspiring example. In 1486, the 
Spaniards had advanced sixty miles into the territory of Granada, 



272 ISABELLA. 

fortifying and colonizing each successive conquest. The sea-port 
of Malaga, a town second only to the city of Granada, well pre- 
pared to sustain a siege, lay completely exposed to the invaders 
in April, 1487. 

The first attempts upon this stronghold being repulsed, and 
rumors of the approach of the plague spreading dismay among 
his troops, Ferdinand sent to Isabella, at Cordova, demanding 
her instant presence at the camp. She came, with her usual 
retinue of ecclesiastics and gallants, and repaired to her tent 
amid the rapturous greetings of the loyal forces. The enthusiasm 
of the besiegers was revived by her arrival. Ferdinand resolved 
to spare no longer the architectural glories of the city, and 
brought out his heavy ordnance. The attack was met in a spirit 
of gallantry of which even the Spanish historians express their 
admiration. The battle raged for six hours, when the Spaniards, 
following up the harassing effects of an exploded mine, estab- 
lished themselves in the enemy's defences. The city soon after 
surrendered without condition, and in the middle of August, 
Ferdinand and Isabella made their entrance into the stronghold. 
A Te Deum was sung for the first time in the Saracen cathedral, 
and then Ferdinand pronounced his sentence on the inhabitants. 
They were doomed to slavery : one-third to be sent to Africa in 
exchange for an equal number of Christians ; one-third to be 
sold to defray the expenses of the war ; and one-third to be 
given away as presents. Isabella herself sent fifty of the fairest 
girls to the Queen of Naples — a cruel measure, which "may find 
some palliation, however, in the bigotry of the age — the more 
excusable in a woman, whom education, general example, and a 
constant distrust of herself, accustomed to rely, in matters of 
conscience, on the spiritual guides whose piety and professional 
learning seemed to qualify them for the trust." 

The year 1489 was devoted to the siege and reduction of 
Baza, near the G-uadalquivir. The queen fixed her residence at 
Jaen, and Ferdinand took command, in May, of an army of 



ISABELLA. 273 

80,000 foot, and 15,000 horse. Baza, unlike the majority of 
Moorish strongholds, lay in a spacious valley, devoted to culti- 
vation and irrigated by a net-work of canals. The city was 
strongly fortified, and though amply provisioned for fifteen 
months, the prudent inhabitants had harvested the yet unsea- 
soned crops. The first onslaught was unsuccessful, and the 
Spaniards were beaten back. The army at once became dejected 
and Ferdinand irresolute. Nothing remained but to ask the 
advice of Isabella. She replied in encouraging terms, asserting 
that their cause was the cause of God, and adding, that they 
need have no apprehension concerning the regularity of the 
supplies — an item for which she held herself responsible. Thus 
exhilarated and reassured, the soldiers returned to their labors 
with renewed spirits. Ten thousand men labored at the works 
of investment for seven weeks, in the midst of the constant and 
harassing sorties of the enemy, and of hand-to-hand encounters 
between the champions of either army. Their provident caterer, 
the queen, sent them not only bread and meat in the wagons of 
the commissariat, but silks, cutlery and jewels, in the packs of 
Aragonese and Catalonian peddlers. 

The siege had now lasted five months. An autumnal storm, 
for which the besieged had hourly prayed, at last broke over 
the investing camp. A deluge of rain swept away their tents, 
and, by rendering the roads impassable, broke up their com- 
munication with Jaen. For a time Isabella's vans were inter- 
rupted ; the labors, however, of six thousand levellers speedily 
repaired the damage ; new bridges spanned the torrents, and 
new passes cut the mountains ; the fourteen thousand mules of 
the department at once resumed their traffic to and fro. Isabella 
ordered new levies of troops, and obtained upon her individual 
security large loans from religious associations ; she even pawned 
the crown jewels, the city of Valencia advancing thirty-five 
thousand florins upon the crown itself. Her presence being 
ardently desired in the camp, she repaired thither on the 7th of 



274: ISABELLA. 

November. Her arrival was the signal for a mutual suspension 
of hostilities ; a truce was, as it were, tacitly agreed upon. Her 
visit was construed by the Moors as an earnest of renewed effort 
on the part of the besiegers, and they, therefore, offered terms 
of capitulation, which, after some negotiation, were accepted. 
The sovereigns took possession of the city on the 4th of Decem- 
ber ; the cities of Almeria and Guadix surrendered in quick 
succession, and the army, after leaving a sufficient force in each, 
returned to Jaen in January, 1490. This was the eighth and 
most decisive year of the war. Eighty thousand men had kept 
the field — twenty thousand of them falling before the sword of 
the enemy or the diseases incident to camp life. 

Abdallah, the King of Granada, had stipulated some years 
previously, that upon the capitulation of Baza, Almeria, 
and Guadix, he would surrender his capital as well. Being 
summoned, early in the year 1490, to perform this engage- 
ment, he declined, alleging the decided opposition of his con- 
stituents, the inhabitants of the city, who clamorously insisted 
upon its defence. Ferdinand, therefore, prepared for its reduc- 
tion, and in April, 1491, took command of the army collected 
for that purpose. Towards the close of the month, the camp 
was formed at about two leagues distance from the massive 
and magnificent metropolis. Isabella often appeared upon the 
held upon a steed superbly caparisoned, and, with her retinue 
of ladies, witnessed the tournaments — often fatal to both com- 
batants — in which the cavaliers of the two armies whiled 
away the time not spent in more general melees. Sorties 
from the city were repulsed with unequal loss, and, on one 
occasion, when the Moorish rabble issued from the gates, to 
measure their undisciplined forces with the Christian warriors, 
two thousand of them fell in the brief though ruthless slaugh 
ter which ensued. 

Midsummer brought with it a disaster which might have 
been fatal to the Castilian cause and queen. The pavilion 



ISABELLA. 275 

of Isabella, by the negligence of an attendant, was set on fire 
at the dead of night. The flames spread from tent to tent, 
and soon threatened to envelop the camp. They were at 
length subdued, though not before a large amount of tent 
material — a portion of it valuable and not easily replaced — 
had been destroyed. It was at once resolved, instead of re- 
constructing the camp, to build a city upon its site. Edifices 
of stone and mortar — houses for the officers, barracks for the 
men, stables for the horses — rose before the wondering eyes 
of the beleaguered Moslems. The city was completed in Octo- 
ber, and though the whole army desired to confer upon it the 
victorious name of Isabella, the queen thought fit to record, 
in the title selected, the faith of her people in the sustaining 
protection of Providence. The city bears to this day the 
name it then received — Santa Fe. 

The besieged were alarmed at this stone encampment — 
one which they felt would outlive Granada. Abdallah saw the 
provisions giving out, the supplies cut off, and aid from across 
the Mediterranean intercepted. He opened negotiations with 
the enemy for the capitulation of the city, his people being 
held in ignorance of their progress. The 2d of January, 1492, 
was fixed upon for the surrender, which took place with 
every possible religious and military ceremonial. The court, 
discarding the mourning they had assumed upon the death of 
Alfonzo, Prince of Portugal, appeared clad in their most sump- 
tuous holiday garments, while the army glittered in polished 
steel, and waved aloft the now triumphant Banner of the Cross. 
As the first column ascended to the city, Abdallah, starting 
upon the exile to which the terms of surrender condemned 
him, saluted Ferdinand as he passed, at the same time de- 
livering to him the keys of the Alhambra, saying, " They are 
thine, king, since Allah so decrees it ; use thy success with 
clemency and moderation." 

The Moorish war, like the siege of Troy, to which the 



276 ISABELLA. 

Spaniards often compare it, had lasted ten years, and thus 
ended in the fall of Granada. The Spanish Arabs, driven from 
the empire which they had raised to the highest degree of civili- 
zation of which their religion and government rendered them 
capable, withdrew before a people whose faith and resources 
made them eminently fit to cultivate to the utmost, the ad- 
vantages which nature, with prodigal hand, had lavished upon 
this favored spot. 

While the sovereigns were still before Granada, the inquisi- 
tors, to whom the task of converting and reforming the Jews 
had lately been assigned, reported to them the entire failure of 
the rigorous measures adopted. They urged the necessity of 
the total banishment of the Israelitish race from Spanish soil, 
supporting their argument by the most calumnious accusations. 
The Jews, they said, kidnapped Christian children and crucified 
them in mockery of the Saviour ; they sought to make converts 
from Christianity, and to reclaim such of their own faith as the 
Inquisition had led astray. Jewish apothecaries, making adroit 
mistakes in compounding their prescriptions, sent home deadly 
doses to their Christian patients. Christians, too, they com- 
plained, still, from time to time, took Jewish wives, seduced by 
the tempting plethora of the Jewish coffers. Wherefore, they 
solicited an immediate edict of banishment. The wily Hebrews, 
aware of the progress of these deliberations, sent a deputy to 
conciliate their majesties by the offer of thirty thousand ducats, 
to be spent in extirpating the Moors. The sovereigns gave 
audience to their ambassador, amused, doubtless, at this contri- 
bution from one form of heresy for the eradication of another. 

While the negotiation was pending, Isabella being markedly 
anxious, from motives not only of humanity, but also of policy 
and prudence, to retain in her empire the most industrious, skill- 
ful, and orderly portion of her subjects, the Inquisitor-General, 
Torquemada, burst into the apartment, and holding aloft his 
crucifix, exclaimed : " Judas Iscariot sold his Master for thirty 



ISABELLA. 277 

pieces of silver ; your highnesses would sell Him anew for thirty 
thousand : here He is, take Him and barter Him away !" He 
tossed the holy emblem violently on the table, and rushed fran- 
tically out. Isabella, who was still, in all matters concerning 
religion, absolutely under the influence of her late confessor, to 
whom she had surrendered her judgment in affairs of conscience, 
hushed her own scruples and signed the edict. One hundred 
and fifty thousand Jews were expelled the kingdom, the clauses 
of the instrument regulating the terms of their banishment being 
so framed, that many a departing exile, forbidden to carry gold 
or silver with him, and yet compelled to exchange immovables 
for movables, bartered his house for an ass and his vineyard for 
a suit of clothes. Spain lost, in this wholesale expatriation of 
her subjects, her best artisans, mechanics, and handicraftsmen — 
a loss which in any age would be lamentable, and one which in 
that age of tardy national development, was irreparable. Indeed, 
one of the wealthiest districts of Spain being depopulated, and 
emptying its valuable, though heretical, citizens into the terri- 
tories of the Turkish Sultan Bajazet, the barbarian monarch 
exclaimed : " Do they call this Ferdinand a politic prince, who 
can thus impoverish his own kingdom and enrich ours ?" 

We have purposely omitted alluding to the arrival in Spain 
of Christopher Columbus, during the Moorish war, in order to 
make a consecutive narrative of his various applications to the 
court of Isabella. Repulsed by the authorities of Genoa, his 
native city, his schemes treated as visionary by the Council of 
Yenice, his negotiations with the King of Portugal rendered 
fruitless by the disloyal conduct of that potentate, Columbus 
arrived in Spain about the year 1484, to lay his proposals for 
western discovery before Ferdinand and Isabella. The sove- 
reigns, though deeply engaged in their preparations for extir- 
pating the Moors, referred the subject to a council of scholars 
and philosophers assembled at Salamanca. Their verdict was 
unfavorable; and Columbus, after five years spent in solicitation, 



278 ISABELLA. 

returned to the convent of La Rabida, where he had left his son 
Diego with his friend Juan Marchena, the prior. Marchena, who 
had formerly been Isabella's confessor, determined to repair 
in person to the improvised city of Santa F6, in which the sove- 
reigns were now receiving the proposals of Abdallah to surrender 
Granada. He was at once admitted to an audience, and urged 
the cause of the despairing philosopher with so much zeal and 
effect, that Isabella, regarding the Moorish war as well-nigh 
terminated, decided to resume the negotiation with Columbus, 
and bade him attend her at Santa Fe. He arrived in time to 
witness the capitulation of the Moslem stronghold, and then laid 
once more before the king and queen his fascinating programme. 

Apart from the arguments upon which he founded his faith 
in the existence of a western continent, he urged two motives 
which he thought likely to sway the passions and influence the 
judgment of his hearers. For Ferdinand he alleged the fabulous 
riches of the lands which he hoped to discover, and which he 
doubted not would prove, though reached by sea from the east, 
to be the Cathay and Cipango which Marco Polo had reached by 
land from the west. For Isabella he held out the hope of adding 
new domains to the fast extending empire of Christendom, and 
of gathering nations of pagans beneath the banner of the cross. 
Ferdinand still looked with coldness upon the project, and his 
distrust changed to downright opposition when Columbus made 
known his conditions. He stipulated that he should receive the 
title of Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of all lands discovered ; 
that his share in all exportations from such lands should be 
one-tenth ; and that his titles and authority should be trans- 
missible in his family for ever. The negotiations were abruptly 
brought to an end, and Columbus, once more shaking the dust 
of Spain from his feet, mounted his mule and rode sturdily 
away. 

Isabella's advisers now warmly remonstrated with her. She 
listened, and at last resolved to accept for herself, individually, 



ISABELLA. 279 

the risk and responsibility which she knew Ferdinand would not 
consent to share. Columbus was recalled, when but a few miles 
from Granada, and, upon his return, was courteously received. 
"I will assume the undertaking," said Isabella, "for my own 
crown of Castile, and am ready to pawn my jewels to defray 
the expenses of it, if the funds in the treasury shall be found 
inadequate." A definitive arrangement was signed before 
Granada on the 17th of April, 1492, the title and authority 
which Columbus had claimed being fully secured to him. He 
was to be the governor-general of all discovered lands, with the 
privilege of suggesting candidates for the governorship, from 
whom the sovereigns should choose. His tenth part of the 
products and profits was likewise guaranteed. Isabella inte- 
rested herself personally in the preparations for the expedition, 
and it is probable that without this royal intervention in his 
behalf, Columbus would never have overcome the overt and 
even rebellious opposition which the shipowners and sailors of 
the Andalusian ports manifested to the undertaking. On the 
3d of August, 1492, the commander and his crews partook of the 
holy communion, unfurled the banner of the cross, and set sail 
upon their adventurous voyage. 

Towards the close of May, the sovereigns quitted Granada 
and Santa F£, and undertook a progress through the country. 
They were everywhere received with an enthusiasm bordering 
on delirium. The court spent the winter at Barcelona, and in the 
spring of 1493, received letters from Palos, announcing the 
return of Columbus, after a voyage resulting in the discovery 
of land in the western seas. Impatient to hear the details of 
this wonderful intelligence, they forwarded instructions to the 
Admiral of the Ocean to attend them instantly at Barcelona. 
He set out amidst the ringing of bells, and such processional 
honors as the little village of Palos could afford. His journey 
was an ovation from beginning to end. He reached the Cata- 
lonian capital in the middle of April. He was escorted to the 
18 



280 ISABELLA. 

palace by the authorities of the city and the nobles in attendance 
upon their majesties. Ferdinand and Isabella rose from their 
seats, extended their hands to him, and bade him be seated 
before them. The court was somewhat moved from its propriety 
at these unprecedented marks of condescension. Columbus then 
narrated his adventures and discoveries, enumerating the islands 
he had visited, describing their climate and productions, and 
even showing specimens of their metallic riches, and enlarging 
upon the character of the simple and confiding races who 
inhabited them. Though his manner was sedate rather than 
enthusiastic, and his deductions those of a philosopher rather 
than those of an enthusiast, yet the audience were kindled to 
rapture by his graphic and eloquent recital. The king and 
queen set the example, as he concluded, of prostrating them- 
selves before Him who had vouchsafed these precious favors to 
the Spanish crown, and the kneeling assembly joined the choir 
in its inspiring anthem of the Te Deum Laudamus. 

Isabella, in conjunction with Ferdinand, now devoted herself 
earnestly to furthering the interest of her infant colonial pos- 
sessions. A custom-house for the transaction of West Indian 
affairs was established at Cadiz, which was henceforth to be the 
port of departure. Seeds, roots, grains, were sent thither in 
abundance for exportation and transplantation ; shipowners were 
required to hold their vessels at Columbus' disposal ; miners, 
mechanics and artisans were recruited and collected at Cadiz, 
and Columbus was empowered to impress officers, soldiers and 
sailors. The equipment for his second voyage was completed 
by the addition of twelve priests, among whom was the since 
celebrated Las Casas, whose mission was to conciliate and illu- 
minate the heathen, under a system of benevolent regulations 
drawn up by Isabella herself. Columbus departed on the 25th 
of September, 1493, with seventeen vessels and fifteen hundred 
men — the latter no longer craven and shrinking poltroons, as on 
the occasion of his first voyage from Palos. but many of them 



ISABELLA. 281 

persons who had enlisted without compensation, eager in the 
pursuit of western adventure, romance or booty. To defray the 
expenses of this voyage, Isabella resorted to a loan, applying 
to the same purpose a portion of the proceeds of the Jewish 
confiscation. 

The first intelligence from the colonists was encouraging, 
and sustained the enthusiasm of the nation. But disastrous 
tidings soon followed. The adventurers, who were subjected to 
no control or discipline, were frittering away their energy in 
isolated and bootless enterprises ; no discoveries of gold had 
rewarded their efforts, while rapine and massacre had followed 
in their track through the islands they had invaded. License 
and disaffection had desolated their ranks ; and Columbus was 
regarded with jealousy as a Genoese and a foreigner. Isabella's 
ear was constantly assailed with accusations and complaints 
against the admiral, to which she listened with undisguised 
reluctance. Columbus returned in 1496, and was received with 
the same favor as before. He again brought specimens of the 
productions of the soil and the handiwork of the natives, but the 
adventurers who returned with him told so sad a story of 
destitution and privation, that the public returned to its former 
skepticism, and regarded with pity the reliance still exhibited by 
Isabella upon the admiral's representations. Placing implicit 
confidence in his assurances that he could not fail soon to 
discover a mainland, she managed to divert to his use a portion 
of the sums set aside for the nuptials of her only son John with 
the Princess Margaret of Austria, and for those of her daughter 
Isabella with Emmanuel, King of Portugal. Honors were con- 
stantly conferred upon him, and his privileges increased with 
his years. 

In April, 1497, John, Prince of the Asturies, now m nig 
twentieth year, espoused his Flemish bride at Bruges. The 
whole nation rejoiced at this auspicious event, which promised 
to Europe peace, and to Spain a continuance, under the son, the 



282 ISABELLA. 

first heir to the combined monarchies of Aragon and Castile, of 
the beneficent sway of his royal parents. But this joy was short- 
lived. The prince was taken ill at Salamanca, whither Ferdinand 
hastened upon receiving the first intelligence. He arrived in 
time to see his son expire, young in years, but ripe in philosophy 
and resignation. In order to prepare Isabella for the calamity, 
he sent couriers to her in rapid succession, each with a bulletin 
less favorable than its predecessor. The queen foresaw the dis- 
pensation, and the messenger who bore the final and fatal tidings 
found her ready to receive them. She ordered the court to 
assume sackcloth instead of white serge, the usual mourning 
garb, and closed all public offices for the space of forty days. 

This calamity was shortly followed by the death of Isabella, 
the eldest daughter of the sovereigns, now, by a second marriage, 
the wife of the King of Portugal. She died in giving birth to a 
son, who was at once recognized as heir to the three crowns of 
Aragon, Castile and Portugal. He, in his turn, was taken away, 
hardly living to complete his second year. The health of Isabella 
gradually sank under these accumulating sorrows. 

Columbus departed upon his third voyage in May, 1498, from 
the port of St. Lucar, with six vessels and a deficient complement 
of men, a portion of the latter being convicts, whose severe 
sentences had been commuted to transportation. He found the 
colony harassed by disaffection and mutiny, and spent a year in 
attempting to remove the abuses which had sprung up in his 
absence. Again were Ferdinand and Isabella annoyed by clamors 
against the admiral, and the king could hardly ride out on horse- 
back without being persecuted by importunate demands for 
redress. Columbus was charged with malversation, disloyalty, 
and even contemplated treason. A commissioner was finally sent 
out to examine into these alleged frauds and misdemeanors ; and 
the extraordinary powers with which it was necessary to clothe 
this officer were conferred upon the since infamous Bobadilla. 
His first use of the authority vested in him was to send Columbus 



ISABELLA. 283 

back in fetters to Spain, having previously accumulated against 
him every species of frivolous or outrageous accusation. Isabella, 
indignant at Bobadilla's high-handed transgression of his prero- 
gative, sent an order for Columbus' instant release ; and upon 
his arrival at Granada, where the court was then residing, sought 
by every gentle means which the heart of a woman or the 
credit of a queen could suggest to soothe his lacerated feelings. 
The sovereign and the subject mingled their tears together. 
Columbus, deeply moved by this display of sympathy, fell upon 
his knees and wept aloud. Isabella promised him that justice 
should be meted out to himself and his detractors, and renewed 
her engagement to legalize the transmission, in his family, of the 
honors and titles he had acquired. 

At about this time, Isabella's heart was gladdened by an 
event in her family of auspicious promise — the birth to her 
second daughter, Joanna, and her husband Philip, Archduke of 
Germany, of a son, whose future greatness as Charles Y., Em- 
peror of Spain and Germany, Isabella was the first to predict. 
But this joy was soon clouded by a sad domestic affliction. 
Joanna was extravagantly fond of her handsome and courtly, 
but frivolous and faithless husband. During his absence in 
France, whither he had been sent by Ferdinand upon a mission 
to Louis XII. , she pined for him in the most doleful manner, 
sitting for hours together upon the ground in unbroken silence. 
Another more dangerous freak, indulged in for the first time 
while her mother was absent, was to repair to the barrier of the 
castle at night, thinly clad, and remain there motionless as a 
statue till morning. The queen, being summoned in all haste, 
with difficulty prevailed upon her to return to her apartment. 
Thus was Isabella as sorely tried in her living children as she 
had been in the deaths of those she had lost. She had been 
compelled to deplore the untimely fate of him who had beei. 
educated for the cares of state, and was competent to bear the 
burden ; a relentless destiny now called upon her to shed fresh 



284 ISABELLA. 

tears at the spectacle of the insanity of her upon whom the suc- 
cession was to devolve. Still, in the midst of her afflictions, and 
despite her rapidly failing health, she maintained her usual 
vigilant supervision of the interests of the state. A historian of 
the time compares her to a rock upon the sea-shore, receiving 
and repelling the advances of the tide and the shocks of the 
waves. 

In the year 1503, the cortes, alarmed at the visible decay of 
Isabella's energies, and aware of the increasing incapacity of 
Joanna, memorialized the queen in favor of a provision for the 
government of the kingdom, in the event of her decease. A 
momentary revival of her spirits was effectually checked by 
humiliating tidings from Flanders, whither Joanna had gone 
to rejoin her husband. The jealous wife, roused to frenzy by 
the open attentions of Philip to one of her own ladies, had 
assaulted the fair object of his devotion. A scandalous scene, 
high words, and finally a rupture between the archduke and 
Joanna ensued. These disgraceful occurrences plunged the 
sovereigns into deep affliction. They both fell ill — Ferdinand 
with the army in Italy, Isabella at Medina del Campo. Though 
compelled to lie prostrate on her couch the greater part of the 
day, she still listened to the reading of papers which concerned 
the state, or, raised upon a cushion, gave audience to foreigners 
who could tell her of the war. 

Isabella was far better prepared for the inevitable change 
than were the people whose passionate admiration she had won. 
They awaited in trembling, but prayerful anxiety the moment 
which was to bereave the Spanish nation. They remembered an 
earthquake and a hurricane of the year before, and connecting 
these omens with the now impending calamity, sought to avert 
the displeasure of heaven by masses, pilgrimages and processions. 
Isabella, retaining her self-possession in the midst of the affliction 
of her subjects, executed, on the 12th of October, her memorable 
will and testament. Commencing by directing her remains to be 



ISABELLA. 285 

consigned to the Franciscan monastery in the Alhambra, in a 
humble sepulchre and with modest ceremonies, she provided, in 
order, for the annual marriage of a certain number of indigent 
girls ; for the ransom of Spaniards held in bondage in Africa ; 
for the payment of her personal debts ; and for a necessary 
retrenchment in the economy of the palace. She recommended 
to her successors the urgent importance of retaining possession, 
for ever, of that key to the Mediterranean, the fortress of Gibral- 
tar. She settled the crown upon her daughter Joanna, as queen 
proprietor, counselling her to live in harmony with her husband, 
and instancing as an example of conjugal felicity, her own long 
and happy life with Ferdinand. The latter she made regent of 
the kingdom, in the event of Joanna's declared incapacity, until 
her son Charles should attain his majority. She then fixed a 
sum for her husband's personal maintenance ; and after men- 
tioning by name the most attached members of her household, 
and asking for them the beneficent consideration of her succes- 
sors, she thus concluded: "I beseech the king, my lord, that he 
will accept all my jewels, or such as he shall select, so that 
seeing them, he may be reminded of the singular love I always 
bore him while living, and that I am now waiting for him in a 
better world ; by which remembrance he may be encouraged to 
live the more justly and holily in this." 

Some weeks later, and but three weeks before her death, she 
added a codicil, the principal articles of which recommended a 
new codification of the laws, and enjoined upon her successors an 
indulgent administration of the affairs of the colonies — some 
vague hints of the cruelties practised by her people upon the 
Indians having already reached her ears. Thus having devoted 
her last conscious moments to the service of the people whom 
Providence had committed to her care, and thinking a sovereign's 
best preparation for eternity to be the faithful discharge of 
her temporal responsibility, she expired, in the midst of weep- 
ing friends, on the 26th of November, 1504, having passed the 

li 



286 ISABELLA. 

fifty-third year of her age, and having nearly attained the thirtieth 
of her reign. "The world.'" wrote Pierre Martyr on the same day, 
11 has lost its noblest ornament ; a loss to be deplored not onlv 
by Spain, which she has so long urged onward in the career 
of glory, but by every nation in Christendom ; for she was the 
mirror of every virtue, the shield of the innocent, and an aveng- 
ing sword to the wicked. I know none of her sex in ancient 
or modern times who is at all worthy to be named with this 
incomparable woman." Isabella's mortal remains were conveyed 
in solemn procession to Granada, where, in the midst of a terrific 
warfare of the elements, they were deposited in the vaults of the 
Franciscan monastery. Upon the death of Ferdinand, they were 
exhumed, to be laid side by side with his, in the more imposing 
shadows of the cathedral and metropolitan church. 

The chroniclers of the reign of Isabella, and even the more 
impartial historians of a later date, have exhausted the language 
of panegyric, while dwelling upon the delightful theme. Her 
people lamented her as the "most brilliant exemplar of every 
virtue ;" the present descendants of the Spaniards over whom 
she exercised her beneficent sway, look back to her administration 
as the brightest page in the history of their country. The only 
blot upon her character was the surrender of her conscience to 
priestly keeping. Though the stain with which the Spanish 
name has been sullied by the introduction of the Inquisition and 
the expulsion of the Jews can never be effaced, yet the customs 
of the age in ecclesiastical affairs may authorize the biographers 
of the Queen of Castile to use the apologetic expression, that 
these measures were resorted to, not by Isabella's authority, but 
during Isabella's reign. 




EIANA HE PDITIERS, 



DIANA DE POITIERS. 



This most remarkable of royal favorites, the daughter of 
Jean de Poitiers, Seigneur de St. Yallier, and the descendant 
of one of the oldest families in Dauphiny in France, was 
born on the 3d of September, 1499. Of her early life, little 
has been preserved ; we know, however, that she was married 
at the age of thirteen, to Louis de Breze, grand-s6nechal of 
Normandy, and grandson, on his mother's side, of Charles TIL 
and Agnes Sorel. She lived at the court of Francis I., the 
most gallant monarch of his time j during the life of her hus- 
band, her conduct furnished no occasion for scandal. 

The grand-senechal died in 1531 ; his widow erected a 
superb monument to his memory m the church of Notre Dame 
de Rouen. She assumed black and white as her colors, and 
during her long and chequered life, she never quitted them. 
She was at this period thirty-two years of age ; Henry, the Duke 
of Orleans, the second son of Francis, with whom the fortunes 
of Diana were to be so intimately connected, had just entered 
his thirteenth year. At what period the liaison commenced, 
is now impossible to say ; but it was, probably, about the year 
1536, Diana being then at the age when female beauty usu- 
ally enters its decline, but still in the full splendor of her 

287 



"288 DIANA DE POITIERS. 

charms. The Duke of Orleans had now become dauphin by 
the death of his elder brother, Francis ; and Diana, we are 
told, finding in him an awkward, shy youth of seventeen, un- 
dertook to form his character and manners on the model of 
the preux chevalier. 

She soon inspired him with an ardent and romantic pas- 
sion. The ascendant thus acquired by personal beauty, was 
confirmed by the fascination of her manners and address. 
She was thus brought into direct rivalry with the Duchess 
d'Etampes, the favorite of the king. The court was at once 
divided into two parties, and scandalous and violent scenes 
often sprang from the animosities created. The duchess was 
ten years younger than Diana, and her partisans gratified her 
vanity by applying to her rival the elegant epithet of ' ' old 
wrinkly." The attachment of the dauphin was in no wise 
weakened by these assaults, and at a tournament held in 1541, 
he assumed Diana's colors, and entered the lists as her cham- 
pion. This act of gallantry was thus celebrated in verse : 

" Un chevalier royal y a dresse sa tente, 
Et sert de coeur loyal une dame excellente, 
Dont le nom gracieux n'est ja besoin d'ecrire, 
II est ecrit aux cieux, et de nuit se peut lire." 

During the height of his passion, Henry married, from mo- 
tives of policy, the beautiful Catherine de Medicis. then eigh- 
teen years jll. Her youthful charms did not detach him 
from the resplendent favorite, and when, upon the death of 
Francis, he ascended the throne, he shared it rather with his 
mistress than his wife. Diana's influence was unbounded, and 
her employment of it unscrupulous. She caused the exile of 
the Duchess d'Etampes, and appropriated her diamonds to her 
own use. The crown jewels were worn exclusively by her. 
Henry adopted as his motto the words, donec totum impleat 
orbem — meaning literally, " until she attain her plenitude" — ■ 



DIANA DE POITIERS. 289 

and referring to the mythologic Diana. He caused his royal 
H to be entwined with her patrician D upon the sculptured 
facade of the Louvre and upon the frescoes at Fontainebleau. 
The constraint in which the young queen was compelled to 
live during the reign of Diana, the habit of reserve and dis- 
simulation which she acquired during the long triumph of 
her rival, are believed to have contributed to form the terri- 
ble Machiavelian character which has made Catherine de Medicis 
so infamous in history. 

In the year 1548, the king bestowed upon Diana the duchy 
of Yalentinois, with the right to assume the title. He also gave 
her a privilege known as the "right of confirmation, 7 ' which 
empowered her to renew, upon his accession to the throne, and 
upon the payment of certain sums, the tenures of all those who 
held office under the crown. Francis I. had accorded this privi- 
lege to his mother ; and the subjects of Henry murmured some- 
what at his very different bestowment of the revenue. Diana 
applied the funds accruing from this source to the embellishment 
of her patrimonial estate of Anet, a lovely country seat which 
the poets of her time celebrated under the name of Dianet. 
Philibert Delorme was her architect, and his sumptuous taste 
soon rendered the seigneurial chateau worthy of what it soon 
became — a royal residence. The pope, desirous of paying court 
to the young king, sent presents at this period both to Catherine 
and Diana, making, however, a delicate discrimination in his 
choice of gifts : to Catherine he gave a blessed rose, and to 
Diana a string of costly pearls. The latter strove to deserve the 
pontifical favor by the zeal which she exhibited against 'tie 
heretics ; and more than once contemplated, in company with her 
cruel and intolerant lover, the heroic martyrdom of Lutherans 
at the stake. She was an ardent Catholic, and all the Calvinistic 
writers of the period attribute to her influence a large portion of 
the persecutions which the Protestants endured. 

Diana had now entered her fiftieth year ; her empire over 



290 DIANA DE POITIERS. 

the king had suffered no diminution, and her charms were still 
those of a woman of twenty-five. To account for a fact so extra- 
ordinary, her enemies invented a story to the effect that she 
dealt in the black art, and that she was indebted for her peren- 
nial youth to potions compounded by unholy hands. One 01 
two historians of the time, who have left works otherwise worthy 
of credit, have not hesitated to assert their belief in this singular 
superstition. But Diana's magic was one which any lady may 
practise without endangering her soul— the magic of amiability, 
regular habits and vigorous exercise. 

She has been thus described by a historian of the reign of 
Francis I. : "Her features were regular and classical ; her com- 
plexion was faultless ; her hair of a rich purple black, which 
took a golden tint in the sunshine ; while her teeth, her ankles, 
her hands and arms, and her bust, were each in their turn the 
theme of the court poets. That the extraordinary and almost 
fabulous duration of her beauty was in a great degree due to the 
precautions which she adopted, there can be little doubt, for she 
spared no effort to secure it. She was jealously careful of her 
health, and in the most severe weather bathed in cold water ; 
she suffered no cosmetic to approach her, denouncing every 
compound of the kind as worthy only of those to whom nature 
had been so niggardly as to compel them to complete her im- 
perfect work. She rose every morning at six o'clock, and had 
no sooner left her chamber than she sprang into the saddle, and 
after having galloped a league or two, returned to bed, where 
she remained until mid-day, engaged in reading. The system 
appears a singular one ; but in her case it undoubtedly proved 
successful. It is certain, however, that the magnificent Diana 
owed no small portion of the extraordinary and unprecedented 
constancy of the king to the charms of her mind and the bril- 
liancy of her intellect." 

Diana, who had borne two daughters to her husband, is said 
to have had one by King Henry. It is also alleged that the king 



DIANA DE POITIERS. 291 

wished to take the necessary steps for acknowledging the infant, 
but that Diana prevented him by saying : " I was born to have 
legitimate children by you ; I have been your mistress because 
I loved you ; but I will not suffer any decree to declare me so." 
On the 10th of July, 1559, a tournament took place at Paris, 
in honor of a royal marriage celebrated there by proxy. Henry, 
who in all exercises requiring bodily strength and persona] 
address had no superior at court, insisted on breaking a lance 
with the Count de Montgomery, the most skillful jouster among 
his subjects. Montgomery entered the lists with apparent, in- 
deed confessed, reluctance. Henry wore, as usual, the colors 
of Diana. The lance of the count broke against the king's 
helmet, whereupon he renewed the assault with the stump. 
It entered Henry's right eye, instantly depriving him of sight, 
speech, and consciousness. The monarch was conveyed to his 
palace, where he remained insensible for eleven days. When 
it was evident that he could not survive, Catherine de Medicis 
sent a message to Diana to quit the palace and return to 
her the crown jewels in her possession. ''Is the king dead?" 
asked Diana of the messenger. The latter replied that he 
was not, but that he could not live through the day. " I 
have no master yet, then," she replied ; "let my enemies know 
that I fear them not ; when the king dies, I shall be too 
much occupied in my grief at his loss to pay heed to the in- 
sults which they may heap upon me." The king expired that 
evening, and Diana, knowing full well that her credit and po- 
sition fell with him, retired gracefully to Anet, where she 
lived tranquilly during the remainder of her life. Catherine, 
content with having driven her from the court, abstained from 
any further persecution. The exiled favorite spent her time 
and her means in deeds of charity and beneficence. She 
founded hospitals for the sick, and an asylum for widows and 
orphans. She died in April, 1566, at the age of sixty-seven 
years. She retained her beauty to the last. "Six months 



292 DIANA DE POITIERS. 

before her death," says Brantfane, " I saw her so handsome, 
that no heart of adamant could have been insensible to her 
charms, though she had some time before broken one of her 
limbs upon the paved stones of Orleans. She had been riding 
on horseback, and kept her seat as dexterously and well as she 
had ever done. One would have thought that the pain of 
such an accident would have made some alteration in her love- 
ly face ; but this was not the case ; she was as beautiful, as 
graceful, and handsome in every respect as she had ever been.' 7 

Diana was the only royal favorite to whom numismatic 
honors were paid by the mints of France. The city of Lyons, 
where she was much beloved, struck a medal to her memory ; 
upon one side was her profile, with the words, Diana, dux 
Yalentinorum clarissima ; and on the reverse her device, 
Omnium Yictorem Yici. This has been erroneously supposed 
to refer to Henry II., but it is not likely that Diana would 
have strained the language of compliment so far as to style 
her very un warlike lord " the conqueror of the world." It 
is to be otherwise interpreted. She had assumed the sym- 
bols of Diana at the commencement of her liaison with the 
prince, and proclaimed defiance to malice by adopting a motto 
which asserted her to be, like her prototype, invulnerable to the 
shafts of that other warrior and conqueror, Cupid. She thus 
intimated her scorn of terrestrial love. It was this construc- 
tion which the engravers of Lyons intended to be placed upon 
the inscription. Diana succeeded, by her high birth, exalted 
connections, her ardent orthodoxy, and, more than all, by her 
matronly age, at least in overawing reproach, if not in silenc- 
ing slander. Her reply to the king, in regard to the public 
acknowledgment of their daughter, shows her to have been 
conscious of the innate superiority of virtue over vice. Her 
life was a remarkable tribute, rendered by one whose celebrity 
and position were due to her frailty, to the dignity of recti 
tude and the supremacy of moral worth. 




ANNE BDLEYN, 



AHE BOLEYN 



The birth of this most unhappy of women and of queens 
took place in Norfolk, England, and, probably, in the year 
1501 — a date more plausible than that usually given, 1507. 
The family of Anne Boleyn was of French origin, and the 
name, before it underwent mutilation to suit English ears, was 
Bulleyne. One of her ancestors was knighted at the corona- 
tion of Richard III., and her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, was 
brought into contact with the court of Henry VII. by the 
marriage of his brother-in-law, Lord Thomas Howard, with 
Anne Plantagenet, the sister of the queen. Lady Boleyn, 
Anne's mother, was one of the reigning beauties of the court 
of Katharine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry the Eighth. 

Anne was educated under the supervision of her mother, 
till the death of the latter in 1512. She was then confided 
to the care of a French governess, named Simonette, and be- 
came, at an early age, a proficient in music, needlework, and 
epistolary compjsition. She corresponded with her father, 
who was usually absent at the court, both in English and 
French. These accomplishments, unusual in one of her sex. 
caused her to be selected, at the age of thirteen, as one of 
the uiaids of honor to Mary Tudor, King Henry's youngest 

203 



294 ANNEBOLEYN. 

sister, on the occasion of her marriage with Louis the Twelfth 
of France. The ceremony was solemnized at Greenwich, in 
August, 1514, and in September, the royal party proceeded 
to Dover, where they were to embark for France. The equi- 
noctial gales delayed them a month, and when at last they 
ventured upon the Channel during a lull of the storm, it was 
to undergo all the hardships incident to a tempestuous passage 
of that boisterous frith. The exhausted voyagers at last made 
the harbor of Boulogne, where they were received, wet and 
weary as they were, by a gorgeous throng of princes and pre- 
lates. After a series of pageants, in which the maid of honor, 
though not yet sixteen, appears to have attracted notice, in her 
crimson velvet robes, the jealous king dismissed all the Eng- 
lish attendants of his queen, both male and female, with the 
exception of Anne Boleyn and two other ladies. The motive 
for Anne's detention is believed to have been her knowledge 
of the French language, and perhaps, too, her French extraction. 
Little is known of her residence at the court of Louis XII. ; 
it is even alleged that the king's captious exclusion of the queen's 
English retinue, finally extended to her, and that she retired 
to a convent in the village of Brie, to complete her educa- 
tion. Upon the death of Louis, she entered the service of his 
daughter, Claude, now the queen of Francis I. This amiable, 
but austere princess zealously sought to fix the thoughts of 
her ladies upon devotional and religious topics. She spent 
much time in processions and genuflexions, and forbade her 
maids of honor to converse or associate with gentlemen, ex- 
cept on occasions of festivity, when, such conversation being 
public and observed by all, no scandal could attach to it. 
Anne's character had by this time been formed, and her lively 
temperament and volatile humor seem to have been in no 
wise consulted in these ascetic regulations. A contemporary 
chronicler thus speaks of her at this period: "She possessed 
great poetic talent, and when she sang, like a second Orpheus, 



ANNE BOLEYN. 295 

she would have made bears and wolves attentive. She like- 
wise danced the English dances, skipping and jumping with 
infinite ease and agility. Besides singing like a syren, she ac- 
companied herself on the lute, and harped better than King 
David. She dressed with marvellous taste, and devised new 
modes, which were followed by the fairest ladies of the court ; 
but none wore them with her grace, in which she rivalled 
Venus." Though she is not mentioned as one of the witnesses 
of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, her presence there, in the 
retinue of the queen, can hardly be doubted. It is, neverthe- 
less, quite certain that Henry and Anne did not meet upon 
the plain of Ardres, and that the period at which their romantic 
and sombre histories intermingle was somewhat subsequent to 
the epoch of the interview of the two courts. 

Late in the year 1521, a dispute between Sir Thomas Bo- 
leyn and the male heirs of the family of the Butlers, in refe- 
rence to an inheritance, rose to such a height that it reached 
the ears of the king ; to whom a suggestion was made, that 
the surest method of effecting a reconciliation and settling all 
difficulties, would be to marry the children of the contestants 
— Anne Boleyn and Piers Butler. Henry concurred in the 
suggestion, and in November, instructed Cardinal Wolsey to 
negotiate the alliance in question. Anne was at once recalled 
from France, and, though certainly at an age when a woman, 
though she may not have disposed of her hand, has often 
lost the control over her affections, arrived in London appa- 
rently free from trammels of every nature. The king first 
met her by accident in her father's garden ; a casual conver- 
sation ensued, in which Henry was charmed by her beauty, 
her grace, and the sprightly animation of her discourse. He 
returned to Westminster with her praises upon his lips, assert- 
ing to Wolsey that she had the wit of an angel, and was worthy 
of a crown. The astute prelate saw in his sovereign's fasci- 
nation the means of luring him away from the cares of state 
19 



296 ANNEBOLEYN. 

— which would thus fall more completely within his own con- 
trol ; he conceived the idea of engrossing the king in the in- 
toxication of an intrigue, and, in furtherance of his scheme, 
suggested the appointment of Anne Boleyn as maid of honor 
to Queen Katharine. 

She was soon presented at court, and her rare and admirable 
beauty soon fixed the attention of the king. The inconstant 
sovereign had previously admired Anne's sister Mary, who was 
incomparably the more delicate and feminine of the two. The 
vivacity and wit of the former, however, the spirit of her conver- 
sation, and the sprightliness of her demeanor — social graces 
acquired at the French court — rendered her infinitely more 
attractive to the pampered taste of the monarch. He soon 
became enamored of her, though he concealed the state of his 
feelings from others, and indeed, as his apologists maintain, from 
himself. Anne, in the meantime, disregarding the motive for 
which she had been recalled from France, paid no heed to the 
contemplated alliance between herself and Piers Butler ; on the 
contrary, she allowed and encouraged the advances of Henry, 
Lord Percy, the heir of the Earl of Northumberland ; after a 
brief courtship, the young lover attained a promise of marriage 
from the willing maid of honor. 

It is proper to remark here, in dissenting from the opinion 
held by the majority of Catholic writers, that Anne sought to 
beguile the king, and was herself the first mover in the intrigue 
which ensued — that we have every reason to believe her love for 
Percy to have been her only genuine attachment ; it is unlikely, 
therefore, that at this period, when she was seriously enamored, 
and before her ambition had been awakened by a contemplation 
of her possible elevation, she would have wittingly sought to 
alienate the affections of her lover by undue dalliance with 
the king ; and we surely have no reason to suppose her already 
so versed in artifice as to have remarked her sovereign's passion, 
and to have plighted her troth to Percy merely to compel him to 



ANNE BOLEYN. 297 

a declaration. As to King Henry himself, it is impossible to 
accept the theory maintained by his defenders, that he was 
unconsciously captivated, and unaware of the emotions incon- 
sistent with his duty as a married man with which he regarded 
her. That Corydon and Daphnis may have been in love without 
knowing it, we can readily believe upon the testimony of the 
poets and after a proper consultation of bucolic literature ; but 
that Henry VIII. was ever ignorant of any passion which burned 
in his bosom, few readers acquainted with the history of his 
reign will admit. The monarch who quarrels with the Pope, 
that he may repudiate one wife and take another, who makes a 
cardinal the abettor of his intrigues and the headsman the instru- 
ment of his lusts, may safely be supposed, from the energy with 
which he pursues his designs, to have consciously formed them 
and to have deliberately resolved upon their execution. 

Upon the announcement of their intended marriage, Henry 
resolved to separate Percy and Anne, and commissioned Wolsey 
to annul the engagement. The cardinal summoned Percy to his 
presence, and threatened him with the displeasure of the king 
for contemplating a union with a person so much beneath him, 
and likewise intimated the probability of his disinheritance by 
his father. The unfortunate young man was subsequently dis- 
missed from court, and compelled to marry Lady Mary Talbot, 
to whom he had been, some time previously, involuntarily 
contracted. Anne, too, was discharged from Queen Katharine's 
service by order of the king, who was unwarrantably piqued 
at the attachment she had manifested to Percy. She withdrew 
to her father's house at Hever, threatening vengeance upon the 
cardinal, to whose interference she attributed her blighted pros- 
pects. The sequel will show with what unrelenting purpose she 
pursued the object of her animosity. 

The king suffered several weeks to elapse before he again 
sought the society of Anne Boleyn, and then paid an unan- 
nounced visit to Hever Castle. Had Anne been playing a part, 



298 A N N E B L E Y N . 

and had her object been to insnare the affections of Henry, 
she would have profited by the present opportunity of effecting a 
reconciliation. So far from this, she pleaded indisposition, and 
locked herself up in her chamber, where she remained during 
his stay. All efforts to see her proving unavailing, the king 
took measures to compel the return of her family to court. He 
appointed her father to the office of treasurer to the royal house- 
hold, with the title of Yiscount Rocheford, and made William 
Carey, the husband of her sister Mary, a gentleman of the privy 
chamber. A present of jewels to the fair Anne herself, and 
at last an avowal, in unmistakable terms, followed in quick 
succession. Anne fell upon her knees, and thus addressed her 
sovereign : "I think, most noble and worthy king, your majesty 
speaks these words in mirth to prove me, without intent of 
degrading your princely self. I beseech }^our highness most 
earnestly to desist and take this my answer, which I speak from 
the depth of my soul, in good part. Most noble king ! I will 
rather lose my life than my virtue, which will be the greatest 
and best part of the dowry I shall bring my husband." 

Henry, fully aware that a repulse so energetic left him no 
resource but to retire, abandoned the attempt for the time, 
adding the assurance, however, that he should continue to hope. 
"I know not," she returned, "how you should retain such hope, 
most mighty king. Your wife I cannot be, both in respect of 
mine own unworthiness, and also because you have a queen 
already ; your mistress I will not be." Anne now withdrew 
from the court, to which no persuasions could induce her to 
return. Henry wrote to her constantly, and the originals, in 
bad French, which are still in existence in the library of the 
Vatican, bear witness to the ardor of his passion and to the 
continued indifference with which Anne received his advances. 
She even left England and spent a year in France, amid the 
festivities consequent upon the liberation of Francis I. from his 
incarceration in Madrid. She returned in 1527, and after ac 



ANNE BOLEYN. 299 

alienation of four years, resumed her place in the household of 
Queen Katharine. 

A marked change was now observed in her conduct, result- 
ing, naturally, from a corresponding change in her character. 
She was now twenty-six years of age ; she had loved but once, 
and had been cruelly disappointed ; time, which had doubtless 
calmed her regrets for the loss of her lover, had deepened and 
intensified her hatred for the prelate to whom she attributed her 
misfortunes. Ambition and revenge were now her ruling pas- 
sions ; and she lived to gratify both. She received the king's 
renewed addresses with smiles, and confident of her power over 
the sovereign, began to treat the cardinal-secretary with scorn. 
Henry, convinced that Anne could only be won as a wife, set on 
foot the intrigues which resulted in his divorce from the queen. 
Hypocritically alleging, at first, that his conscience was sorely 
grieved by his marriage with his brother's widow, and at last 
openly calling for an ecclesiastical inquiry into the validity of 
their union, he pressed the subject with an impatient zeal which 
shocked even the most unscrupulous of his courtiers. 

In the midst of these preliminaries, a terrible pestilence 
which broke out in London, and which was fatal to several 
members of the royal household, recalled Henry to a sense of 
his iniquities, and alarmed him into a temporary reconciliation 
with his wife. He even sent Anne Boleyn back to Hever, 
and spent his time in exercises of devotion and in compound- 
ing specifics against the plague. He confessed his sins once 
a day, and during the prevalence of the epidemic, made thirty- 
nine wills. But with the disappearance of the disease, his 
equanimity returned, he abandoned his pharmaceutical studies, 
summoned Anne back to court, and discontinued his reli- 
gious avocations. At last the Pope's envoy, the cardinal-legate 
Campeggio, arrived. He was won over by Katharine to espouse 
her cause, and Wolsey, his colleague, finding that the humi- 
liation of the queen would be followed by the elevation of 



300 ANNE BOLE YN. 

his dissembling enemy, Anne, contrived, by a dexterous and 
lavish exercise of his diplomatic craft, to interpose a constant 
succession of obstacles to the proceedings for a divorce. 

The queen was now sent to Greenwich, and Anne was 
established in a splendid mansion known as Suffolk-house, to 
which the king had unobserved access through the contiguous 
palace of the cardinal. Here she held daily levees, and in- 
dulged, prospectively, in all the parade and pleasures of royalty. 
Her position was now worse than equivocal ; scandal was busy 
with her name and fame, and the reports of the foreign am- 
bassadors to their respective cabinets represented her intimacy 
with the king as having reached all possible limits. Crowds 
of riotous people paraded the streets, shouting " Down with 
Nan Bullen ! We won't have Nan Bullen for our queen I" 
The sympathy of the courts of Europe had plainly been pro- 
nounced for Katharine, and for a time Henry wavered in the 
prosecution of his schemes. 

Months and even years passed, and the great question, 
though still agitated at Rome and in the universities of Eu- 
rope, remained unsettled. Wolsey fell, through Anne's resent- 
ment, and Cranmer rose to power, through her influence ex- 
erted in his behalf. In her thirty-first year, she was created 
a peeress of the realm, with the title of Marchioness of Pem- 
broke. A grand ceremony was performed in honor of this 
event, in which the king placed the robe of state and the 
golden coronet upon the shoulders and brow of the expectant 
queen. The real queen, during this time, was residing at Ampt- 
hill in Bedfordshire, separated from her only daughter, virtu- 
ally divorced from her husband, and deprived of the respect 
and deference due to her not only as a queen, but as a mo- 
ther and a wife. 

In 1532, Henry crossed the English Channel to Boulogne, 
to confer with Francis I. Anne accompanied him, and was 
present at the congress. She was greatly mortified, upon the 



ANNEBOLEYN. 301 

arrival of the French king, to find him unattended by any of 
the ladies of his court — a fact which afforded palpable evi- 
dence of the suspicion with which she was regarded. She 
was consequently unable to appear at any of the festivities 
ottered to the English monarch. 

Shortly after their return to England, Henry and Anne 
were united in marriage. The ceremony took place privately, 
in an empty attic in the west turret of Whitehall, on the 
25th of January, 1533. The royal chaplain had been sum- 
moned thither to perform a mass, and, upon his arrival, found 
the king and Anne Boleyn awaiting him ; three witnesses were 
also present — Henry Norris and Heneage, grooms of the cham- 
ber, and Anne Saville, the bride's train-bearer. The chaplain 
expressing some hesitation to celebrate the rites of marriage 
under such auspices, Henry easily reassured him, either by the 
promise of a vacant bishopric or by the assurance that he 
had received the papal authorization. The king's counsellors 
were totally ignorant of the step thus taken by their royal 
master. Cranmer himself remained in ignorance of the mar- 
riage till about the 10th of February. It was soon evident, 
however, that a prolonged maintenance of the secret would 
affect the legitimacy of Anne's expected offspring — the heir 
to the crown. The marriage was therefore publicly solemnized 
on the 12th of April ; and on the 8th of May, Cranmer, pre- 
siding at a tribunal held at Dunstable, pronounced the inva- 
lidity of the king's previous union with Katharine of Aragon. 
This declaration naturally rendered a decree of divorce un- 
necessary. 

The first pageant in honor of the new queen, and prelimi- 
nary to the coronation, took place upon the Thames, on the 19th 
of May. The purpose was to fetch the queen in state from 
Greenwich to the Tower ; the lord mayor's barge, the bachelors' 
barge, the barges of the city craftsmen, fifty in number, all orna- 
mented with colored flags hung with bells, rowed chiming and 

12 



302 ANNE BOLEYN. 

tinkling up the river to Greenwich palace. The barge furnished 
by the worshipful craft of the haberdashers, was a gun-boat, 
armed with inoffensive culverins, and manned by worthy clothiers 
and tailors disguised as fire-monsters and " salvages terrible to 
behold." A pyrotechnic dragon, stationed upon the deck, spirted 
fire from a revolving tail, while his sartorial attendants vomited 
flames from their mouths into the river. From time to time, 
a culverin, loaded by some draper less expert with the ramrod 
than the yard-stick, filled the air with echoes and the floating 
spectators with awe. The queen entered her barge at the palace, 
and was attended in state to the Tower, where a peal of ordnance, 
shot off at the command of the king, announced her arrival at 
the fortress. Henry received her with a kiss, and dismissed the 
lord mayor with thanks. The barges floated about before the 
Tower the whole evening, and as darkness descended over 
the river, the capering dragon and his fiery tail, together with 
the incendiary haberdashers and their hissing coruscations, per- 
formed their antics to an audience which covered the bosom of 
the water, and swarmed over the bridges, turrets and gateways 
which commanded a view of the fantastic scene. 

The next pageant was that of the royal progress through the 
city, on the eve of the coronation. The streets of the city were 
spread with gravel ; Cornhill and Cheapside were hung with 
crimson and scarlet, and with cloth of gold and velvet. Anne 
was seated in an open litter which was covered with white and 
gold cloth, and supported by two palfreys, enveloped in white 
damask and led by the queen's footmen. She herself was 
dressed in silver tissue, lined with ermine ; a canopy of cloth of 
gold, carried by four knights on foot, was borne over her head. 
She was followed by seven ladies upon palfreys clad in crimson 
velvet, by four ladies of the bedchamber in a scarlet chariot, and 
by thirty waiting-maids on horseback. The procession came to 
a pause from time to time to witness the shows and pageants 
with which the line of march was occupied. 



ANNE BOLEYN 303 



Among these was a group representing Mount Parnassus 
with Apollo and his attendants, arranged about a fountain of 
Helicon which ran with Rhenish wine throughout the day 
Another was the coronation of a white falcon seated among 
white and red roses. At Cornhill, the Three Graces welcomed 
.he queen, and, through the medium of an attendant poet 
bestowed gifts and blessings upon her. A neighboring fountain 
ran, in the meantime, at one end with white wine and at the 
other with claret. At Cheapside, Pallas, Juno and Venus gave 
Queen Anne their apple of gold, significant of wisdom, riches 
and felicity. Ladies, grouped over the gate of St. Paul's, threw 
down wafers stamped with devotional mottoes. At Fleet street 
Conduit four turrets were erected, and from each turret a Cardi- 
nal Virtue solemnly promised never to desert, but ever to aid 
and comfort, the beautiful new queen. A choir, posted on the 
leads of St. Martin's, sang ballads in her praise ; and a grand 
concert, artfully concealed, " made a solemn and heavenly noise." 
Thus, through a series of similar shows, derived principally from 
heathen mythology, the queen proceeded till she reached West- 
minster Hall. Here she alighted, and remained during the 
night. The morrow was Whitsunday, the 1st of June, and 
upon that long and ardently expected day, her coronation as 
Queen of England was to be sumptuously solemnized. 

At eight o'clock in the morning, Anne, robed in purple velvet 
lined with ermine, entered Westminster Hall, and stood under 
the canopy of state. The procession usual in ceremonies of the 
kind then started, proceeding from the Hall through the sanc- 
tuary and palace to the high altar in the Abbey. Here the 
queen seated herself upon gorgeous cushions, and after a few 
moments repose, descended to the altar, prostrating herself 
before it. Cranmer read the collect provided by the ritual, and 
anointed the queen upon the head and breast with the coronation 
oil. He then placed the crown of St. Edward upon her brow, 
while the choir sang the Te Deum Laudamus. As the crown of 



304 ANNE BOLEYN. 

the saint was too heavy, however, another, expressly made for 
her. was quickly substituted in its place. Cranmer then cele- 
brated a Catholic mass, after which Queen Anne returned to 
her withdrawing chamber, to await the coronation banquet. 

This quaint ceremonial was performed without the participa- 
tion of the king, who was concealed in an adjoining cloister 
where, in company with several gossiping ambassadors, he 
witnessed the fantastic feast. The Earl of Essex was the queen's 
carver ; the Earl of Arundel her butler ; Lord Burgoyne her 
larderer ; Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet, formerly her lover, 
her ewerer ; while the mayor of Oxford kept the buttery bar. 
The Countess of Worcester held a handkerchief before the 
queen's face, "whenever she listed to spit." Two other ladies 
of high rank sat under the table at the queen's feet. The first 
course, consisting of twenty-seven dishes, among which were 
"subtleties of ships made of colored wax," were brought into the 
hall and placed upon the table by the knights of the Bath, 
escorted by the Duke of Suffolk and Lord Howard on horseback. 
During the progress of the dinner, a band of trumpeters, located 
in the grand window, discoursed agreeable music. The cere- 
monial, or rather series of ceremonials, which began at eight, was 
not concluded till six in the evening. Anne Boleyn was now 
queen in solemn earnest 

From the very outset of her ambitious career, however, she 
had felt her situation to be precarious. She was conscious that 
her tenure of power was contingent upon her giving birth to a son 
who should inherit the crown. She knew that she had become 
the subject of the revilings of the populace, and of the fulmina- 
tions of Pope Clement. Henry was branded in the pulpit with 
the name of polygamist, and on one occasion, Anne listened to a 
sermon from an indignant friar, in which he invoked heaven's 
wrath upon them both ; and she read letters and petitions 
addressed to the king, in which he was implored to "put that 
Jezebel away." For a time, however, the delicate attentions of 



ANNE B OLE YN. 305 

her royal lover softened the annoyance and anxiety which these 
vexations caused her ; and she forgot the denunciations of the 
pope and the hostility of the people as she contemplated the 
new gold coins upon which her initial A. was entwined with 
the sovereign's royal H. 

Anne gave birth to a daughter in September of the same 
year. Henry, whose disappointment might have been tempered, 
had he been enabled by the gift of second-sight to contemplate 
the glory which the infant Elizabeth was destined to achieve, did 
not seek to conceal his chagrin. His first act was one of pettish, 
unmanly spite : he denied the mother +he privilege of nursing 
the babe herself, and caused it to be removed to a distant apart- 
ment, as he did not wish his rest to be disturbed, he said, by the 
presence and the complaints of an offspring so unwelcome. 

Disappointed as Henry was, he nevertheless caused the 
Parliament to pass an act entailing the succession upon his 
daughter by Anne, in case he should have no heirs male — thus 
excluding his daughter by Katharine, the Princess Mary. All 
persons in office were at the same time compelled to swear alle- 
giance to the line thus established. Sir Thomas More, lord 
chancellor, refused ; and Anne, in the bitterness of her resent- 
ment, induced the king to sentence his tried and faithful servant 
to the block. This was the most execrable act of her reign. 
More, when visited in the Tower by his daughter, was told by 
her that Anne and the court did little else than dance and sport. 
" These dances of hers," returned More, ; 'will prove such dances 
that she will spurn our heads off like footballs, but it will not be 
long ere her head will dance the like dance.' 7 When the intelli- 
gence of More's execution was brought to Henry, he said to 
Anne, " Thou art the cause of this man's death." He then 
abruptly left the room and shut himself up in his own apartment. 

The new pope, Paul III., now renewed the denunciations of 
his predecessor, Clement, and declared the offspring of Henry 
and Anne illegitimate. This persecution by the Catholic church 



306 ANNE BOLE1N. 

induced Anne to become an apparent convert to the doctrines 
of the Reformation, then in its infancy ; in heart, however, she 
was still a Romanist, though at best an inconsistent one. While, 
on the one hand, she abstained from interfering between the 
ruthless cruelty of Henry and the martyrdom of the Protestants 
— an interference which the control she exercised over the king 
at this period would have made successful — she used her in- 
fluence, on the other, to obtain the royal sanction to the transla- 
tion of the Scriptures. Her deportment underwent a marked 
change at this epoch — one usually ascribed to her intimacy with 
Hugh Latimer, the reformist preacher, whom she had caused 
to be released from the confinement which his professions of 
faith had brought upon him. Under his tuition, she became 
humble, charitable, devout ; she made large donations of money 
to the poor, provided for the education of numerous young men 
destined to the church, and spent her leisure hours in working 
tapestry and in discoursing of religion with her maids of honor. 
Yet, in the intervals between these various exercises of piety, 
she urged the king to renewed persecutions of Katharine of 
Aragon, and, finally, upon the death of that unfortunate queen, 
she appeared at the funeral clad in yellow, thus disobeying, in 
the unamiable exultation of her triumph, the express commands 
of Henry, who had ordered the court to assume black upon the 
occasion. 

Whether the disgust occasioned in the mind of the king by 
this unqueenly display was the proximate cause of his alienation 
from Anne, it would be impossible at this late day to decide. It 
is certain, however, that in the very month in which Katharine 
died, and at the very time, therefore, when Anne had reason to 
believe the crown firmly fixed upon her own head, she brought 
forth, during the throes of a premature travail, a still-born son. 
This event, fatal to the hopes of Anne Boleyn, had been caused 
by the grief and despair consequent upon a sight which met 
her gaze, as she one day entered unexpectedly a room where 



ANNE BO LE YN. 307 

the king was seated. Upon his knees sat her maid of honor, 
the beautiful, yet shameless, Jane Seymour. The nature of their 
conversation and the familiarity of their attitudes, spoke too 
plainly to the eyes of the agonized queen of the place already 
held by Jane in the affections of her inconstant lord. Henry 
endeavored to soothe her agitation and reason away her fears, 
in his anxiety for the life of the expected heir ; but when his 
hopes had been crushed by the untimely birth, he gave way to 
the natural brutality of his character, and muttered as he with- 
drew from the bedside, that "Anne should have no more boys 
by him." 

Events now succeeded each other in confused rapidity. Anne, 
whose health returned, but whose spirit was quelled, and whose 
heart was well-nigh broken, withdrew to Greenwich Park, where 
she spent the sad days in listless expectation of the blow, in 
whatever shape it might come, which should drive her from the 
home, as she had already been expelled from the affections, of the 
royal egotist who occupied the throne. Her conscience admon- 
ished her that, as by her arts she had compassed the fall of the 
queen her mistress, so another, younger and fairer than herself, 
was, in her turn, by similar, indeed, identical arts, to compass 
her own disgrace. It does not appear, however, that Anne's 
apprehensions extended beyond the probable loss of her 
dignity as a queen and her station as a wife. She had every 
reason to expect a divorce, while she had none whatever to 
anticipate death. No female blood had yet been shed upon 
the scaffold in English annals ; and Anne, whatever may have 
been her secret anxiety, could not have supposed that she would 
oe, not only the first queen, but the first woman in England 
to bare her neck to the executioner's axe. 

The eagerness of the king to displace Anne, and to share his 
throne with the new favorite, was now apparent to all the retain- 
ers of the court. In the servility of their obedience, they sought 
to ingratiate themselves into his favor, by bringing accusations of 



308 ANNEBOLEYN. 

infidelity, founded upon idle and invidious gossip, against the 
queen their mistress. In the absence of any other pretext of 
ridding himself of the incumbrance, Henry resolved to proceed 
against his wife upon these frivolous and odious grounds. Mark 
Smeaton, a musician — who had, indeed, been so adventurous as 
to whisper his passion in the ears of the coquettish Anne, always 
a willing listener to such confidences— and three, gentlemen of 
the royal household, Norris, Brereton, and Weston, were de- 
nounced as her paramours. Her brother, George Rocheford, 
was also charged, by his malignant wife, with entertaining feel- 
ings towards his sister revolting alike to nature and to decency. 
The king at once organized his plot upon this basis. He dis- 
solved the Parliament early in April, that the queen, in her 
coming adversity, might have no opportunity of appealing to that 
body. He appointed a secret committee from members of his 
privy council, to investigate the charges brought against her. 
Brereton was at once examined and imprisoned. On the first of 
May, at a tournament at Greenwich, attended in state by Henry 
and Anne, Norris, one of the suspected persons, being in the lists, 
took up a handkerchief which the queen, either by accident or 
design, had dropped, and in returning it, kissed it, after the 
courtly manners of the time. Henry rose furiously from his seat, 
gave orders for the arrest of Anne and of the implicated parties, 
and rode sullenly back to Whitehall. 

Anne was conveyed to the Tower the next day, the second of 
May. On her way thither, an attempt was made to extract a 
confession from her, by telling her that " her paramours had ac- 
knowledged their guilt." She replied by a passionate protesta- 
tion of innocence. As she entered the room she was to occupy, 
she fell upon her knees, exclaiming, " Oh, Lord, help me, as I 
am guiltless of that whereof I am accused !" She then gave way 
to a paroxysm of hysterical grief, in which apprehension for her- 
self and dismay for her suspected friends were equally mingled. 
Upon recovering her self-possession, she said to the lieutenant 



ANNE BOLBYN. 309 

of the Tower who attended her, " Mr. Kingston, shall I die 
without justice ?" 

Two ladies, who had their own reasons for detesting their 
queen, Lady Boleyn, her aunt, and Mrs. Cosyns, one of her 
suite, were placed as spies over her, that they might listen to 
her delirious ravings, and report to the king the calumnious 
inferences which they might have the ingenuity to extort from 
them. They succeeded, by artful interpretations of her lan- 
guage and even by gross misrepresentation of her words, in 
causing her to criminate herself in more ways than one. They 
alleged that she even admitted her desire for the king's death, 
that she might marry Norris ; and that she expressed great fear 
that Weston, in his examination, might compromise her, as he 
had already told her " of his belief that Norris went to her 
chamber more for her sake than for Madge," one of her ladies 
of honor. These statements, coming from women in the avowed 
position of spies, and openly confessing themselves the enemies 
of the queen, are not and cannot be, upon any principle of evi- 
dence, entitled to the smallest degree of reliance, in the absence 
of authentic corroborating testimony. " The king wist well 
what he did," said Anne, bitterly, " when he put such women as 
Lady Boleyn and Mrs. Cosyns about me." 

On the fourth day of her imprisonment, Anne wrote and for- 
warded to Henry a letter thus addressed: " To the King, from 
the Ladye in the Tower." We quote entire this beautiful appeal 
*o the better nature of the tyrant : 

"Sire: 

"Your grace's displeasure and my imprisonment are 
things so strange unto me, as what to write, or what to ex- 
cuse, I am altogether ignorant. Let not your grace ever im- 
agine that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknow- 
ledge a fault, when not so much as a thought thereof preceded. 
And, to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in 



310 ANNE BOLE YN. 

all duty and in all true affection than you have ever found 
in Anne Boleyn ; with which name and place I could willingly 
have contented myself, if God and your grace's pleasure had 
been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget my- 
self in my exaltation or received queenship, but that I always 
looked for such an alteration as I now find ; for the ground 
of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your 
grace's fancy, the least alteration I knew was fit and sufficient 
to draw that fancy to some other object. You have chosen 
me from a low estate to be your queen and companion, far 
beyond my desert or desires. . . . Try me, good king, but let me 
have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my 
accusers and judges ; yea, let me receive an open trial, for 
my truth shall fear no open shame ; then shall you either see 
mine innocence cleared, your suspicions and confidence satis- 
fied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my 
guilt openly declared. 

" But if you have already determined of me, and that not 
only my death, but an infamous slander, must bring you the en- 
joying of your desired happiness, then I desire of God that he 
will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, 
the instruments thereof, and that he will not call you to an 
account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me, at his general 
judgment seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear, 
and in whose judgment, I doubt not, whatsoever the world may 
think of me, mine innocence shall be openly known and suffi- 
ciently cleared. My last and only request shall be, that myself 
may only bear the burden of your grace's displeasure, and that it 
may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen who, 
as I understand, are in strait imprisonment for my sake. If ever 
I have found favor in your sight, if ever the name of Anne Bo- 
leyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this re- 
quest, and I will so leave to trouble your grace any further, with 
mine earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your grace in his 



ANNEBOLEYN. 311 

good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions. From my 
doleful prison in the Tower, this sixth of May. 

" Your most loyal and ever faithful wife, 

1 'Anne Boleyn." 

The Grand Jury of Westminster found an indictment against 
the queen and the five parties accused upon the 10th of May. 
Norris, Weston, Brereton and Smeaton were tried on the same 
day. They were found guilty and condemned to death, though 
upon what evidence the records do not inform us. The wretched 
Smeaton made a desperate effort to save his life by confessing a 
criminal intercourse with the queen. He was hanged, while the 
others, of noble birth, were brought to the block. Anne and 
her brother, Lord Rocheford, were tried on the 16th of the 
month. Twenty-six peers, upon whose servility Henry knew he 
could rely, were chosen by him from the fifty-three who consti- 
tuted the entire body. Anne's uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, her 
unrelenting enemy, w r as deputed to preside over their delibera- 
tions ; while all who had a motive, either avowed or presumed, 
for desiring the removal of the queen, were made " lords triers" 
in this infamous court. Even Percy, now Earl of Northumber- 
land, Anne's once betrothed lover, whom Henry might suppose 
to cherish a lingering resentment at the indifference with which 
she had abandoned him, was named among her judges. He 
appeared and took his seat: he was seized, however, with a 
violent and uncontrollable agitation before the trial commenced, 
and hastily quitted the hall. He died soon afterwards, broken- 
hearted. 

Lord Rocheford was the first arraigned. His wife volunteered 

her evidence against him, which was, in substance, that he had 

once leaned upon the bed in which his sister, the queen, was, 

and, in making some request, had kissed her. The court at 

once convicted him of high treason, and condemned him to death. 

Anne was then summoned to appear. She entered, and was led 
20 



312 ANNE BOLE YN. 

to the bar by the constable of the Tower. Though without 
counsel or defender, her manner betrayed neither fear nor agita- 
tion : she courtesied to the judges, and then held up her hand 
and pleaded "not guilty." The destruction of the records of 
the trial leave us without the means of judging of the admissi- 
bility of the evidence brought against her. All that remains is 
a defaced entry in the private note-book of one of the judges, 
from which it would appear that "one Lady Wingfield, who had 
been a servant to the queen, and had become suddenly infirm 

before her death, did swear this matter to one of her" 

If this was all the evidence, it was singularly incomplete, being 
the hear-say statement that a woman, dead before the trial, had 
made an oath some time previously, at a time when she was 
infirm, and perhaps not altogether sane. 

Anne defended herself with so much eloquence, and such 
logical acumen, that a report spread through the city that she 
was sure of an acquittal. A verdict of condemnation was, never- 
theless, declared. The queen was then required to lay aside 
her crown while sentence was pronounced by her uncle, the 
Duke of Norfolk — a sentence to death at the stake or upon the 
block, as the king might decree. Anne raised her eyes to 
heaven as these terrible words were uttered, and said: "Oh, 
Father ! oh, Creator ! Thou who art the way, the life and the 
truth, thou knowest whether I have deserved this death!" She 
then made the following address to the peers of the realm : 
"My lords, I will not say your sentence is unjust, nor presume 
that my reasons can prevail against your convictions. I am 
willing to believe that you have sufficient reasons for what you 
have done ; but then they must be other than those which have 
been produced in court, for I am clear of all the offences which 
you there laid to my charge. I have ever been a faithful wife 
to the king, though I do not say I have always shown him that 
humility which his goodness to me, and the honor to which he 
raised me, merited. I confess I have had jealous fancies and 



ANNE BOLE YN. 313 

suspicions of him, which I had not discretion and wisdom enough 
to conceal at all times. But God knows and is my witness, that 
I never sinned against him in any other way. Think not that I 
say this in the hope to prolong my life. God hath taught me 
how to die, and he will strengthen my faith. I know these my 
last words will avail me nothing, except for the justification of 
my chastity and honor. As for my brother and those others 
who are unjustly condemned, I would willingly suffer many 
deaths to deliver them ; but since I see it so pleases the king, I 
shall willingly accompany them in death, with this assurance, 
that I shall lead an endless life with them in peace." She then 
courtesied resignedly to her judges and the court, and left the 
hall accompanied by the constable and the ladies who had 
attended her at the bar. 

A few hours after, Henry signed the death-warrant of his 
wife. On the 17th of the month a summons was served upon 
her, requiring her to appear before the archbishop at Lambeth, 
" to answer certain questions as to the validity of her marriage 
with the king." Acknowledging, as she was bound in truth to 
do, her engagement to Percy before her union with Henry, 
she was forced to hear from the lips of Cranmer the declaration 
that the marriage was null and void, and had always been so. 
The artful king had delayed the publication of this new sentence, 
till Anne had been formally condemned to death ; it is evident 
that had he caused his marriage with Anne to be pronounced 
null before her trial for infidelity and high treason, she could not 
have been found guilty of crimes which only a lawful wife could 
commit. Henry's proceedings were logically conducted, how- 
ever ; he desired Anne's death as a more complete release from 
her than he could procure by a divorce ; and he sought to 
invalidate their marriage that he might dispossess his daughter 
Elizabeth of her right to the succession. He had already reached 
that epoch in his career, in which it was said of him that, 
"Henry, the most brutal, heartless and licentious tyrant in 



314 AN NE B LE YN. 

history, never spared a man in his anger, nor a woman in his 
lust." 

As Anne returned from Lambeth Palace, she heard the knell 
of her brother and her friends, who were to be executed that 
day upon Tower Hill. Rocheford suffered first, having exhorted 
his companions to die courageously, and having forgiven his 
enemies and the king. Norris, Brereton and Weston bowed their 
necks to the axe in turn. Mark Smeaton, as has been said, was 
hanged. His dying words, " Masters, I pray you all to pray for 
me, for I have deserved the death," have been construed as a 
confession of guilt. But it is quite as likely they were an 
expression of contrition for his perjury. This is the more pro- 
bable from the fact that Anne fully expected him to make a 
retraction of his previous confession, and not interpreting his 
language in this sense, exclaimed, "Has he not, then, cleared 
me from the public shame he has done me ? Alas, I fear his soul 
will suffer from the false witness he hath borne." 

Anne had now but two days to live, as the 19th of May had 
been appointed by the king as " the last of earth" for her. She 
spent this brief period in devotional exercises with a Catholic 
confessor, and in attempts at poetic composition. The following 
stanza of a dirge written by her at the time, aptly depicts the 
desolation of her feelings upon the approach of the fatal hour : 



"Farewell my pleasures past, 
Welcome my present pain, 
I feel my torments so increase, 
That life cannot remain. 
Sound now the passing-bell, 
Eung is my doleful knell, 
For its sound my death doth tell; 

Death doth draw nigh, 

Sound the knell dolefully, 

For now I die!" 

Henry had waived the privilege by which he might have 
turned his wife at the stake. He compensated for this leniency. 



AN N E B LE YN. 315 

however, by authorizing an experiment to be tried upon her 
person. He ordered the headsman of Calais — a man renowned 
for his address — to be brought to London, that Anne might 
be decollated with a sword, after the French fashion, instead of 
being decapitated by the traditional axe of English executions. 
All strangers were excluded from the Tower that the hideous 
spectacle might be witnessed by as few persons as possible — the 
cruel monarch's single acknowledgment of the power of public 
opinion. Cromwell, the successor of Wolsey in his confidence, 
had advised him not to fix the hour, in order to lessen the 
chances of a concourse of people and of a forcible rescue. 

Anne rose at two o'clock on the morning of Friday, the 19th. 
She partook of the sacrament, and while engaged in this supreme 
devotional act of her life, solemnly protested to the lieutenant of 
the Tower her innocence of the crimes for which she was to 
die. As she had never deigned to sue for mercy to the king, 
and as, so far from desiring a reprieve or pardon, she was now 
impatient for a release from her sufferings, the reader will see 
in this solemn declaration, not an act of deliberate perjury, which 
could not help her here and would endanger her hereafter, but 
an assertion of innocence, intended to clear her character rather 
than to prolong her life. She was a personage in history and 
had occupied the throne : nothing could have been more natural 
than that she should seek, while not compromising her eternity 
in heaven, to vindicate her good name with posterity on earth. 

While she was making her preparations for the fatal moment, 
Kingston, the lieutenant, was writing to Cromwell an account of 
every event which transpired in the Tower. Anne sent for him 
to say that she had heard " she should not die before noon, and 
was very sorry therefor, for she had thought to be dead by this 
time, and past her pain." Kingston replied that the pain would 
be little, "it was so subtle." Anne returned, laughing, "I have 
heard say the executioner is very good, and I have a little neck." 
It was probably about eleven o'clock that Anne sent to the king. 



316 ANNEBOLEYN. 

by a messenger whom she thought trustworthy, but who dared 
not deliver them, the memorable words which Lord Bacon has 
transmitted to posterity: " Commend me to his majesty," she 
said, "and tell him he hath ever been constant in his career 
of advancing me. From a private gentlewoman he made me a 
marchioness ; from a marchioness, a queen ; and now that he 
hath left no higher degree of honor, he gives my innocency the 
crown of martyrdom." 

At twelve o'clock the portals opening upon the church-green 
were thrown open, and Anne Boleyn appeared, led by the lieu- 
tenant of the Tower, and accompanied by her four maids of 
honor. She was dressed in black damask, with a deep white 
cape at the neck. Her cheeks were flushed, while her eyes 
gleamed with unusual lustre. She ascended the scaffold, with the 
aid of the lieutenant, and saw there, assembled to witness her 
death, her implacable uncle the Duke of Norfolk, the lord mayor, 
and other civic functionaries, Henry's natural son, the Duke of 
Richmond, and Cromwell, whom she had aided in his aspiring 
aims, and who had deserted her in her adversity. To none of 
these truculent personages did she condescend to speak. With 
the permission of Kingston, however, she thus addressed the 
sparse assemblage of spectators : " Grood Christian people, I am 
come hither to die according to law, for by the law I am judged 
to die, and therefore will speak nothing against it. I am come 
hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that whereof 
I am accused, as I know full well that aught that I could say in 
my defence doth not appertain unto you, and that I could draw 
no hope of life from the same. But I come here only to die, 
and thus to yield myself humbly unto the will of my lord the 
king. I pray God to save the king and send him long to reign 
over you, for a gentler or more merciful prince was there never. 
To me he was ever a good and gentle sovereign lord. If any 
person will meddle with my cause, I require him to judge the 
best. Thus I take my leave of the world and of you, and I 



AN NE B LE YN. 317 

heartily desire you all to pray for me." She then, without the 
assistance of her ladies, removed her hat, and, placing a linen 
cap over her hair, said : " Alas ! poor head, in a very brief space 
thou wilt roll in the dust upon the scaffold ; and as in life thou 
didst not merit to wear the crown of a queen, so in death thou 
deservest not better doom than this.' 7 She gave her prayer-book 
to her faithful friend, Mary Wyatt, the sister of the poet, who 
had steadfastly clung to her in every reverse, and then suffering 
her eyes to be bandaged by another of her ladies, she knelt 
down upon both knees. Uttering a hasty prayer, " Lord God, 
have pity upon my soul I" she received upon her neck the sturdy 
yet skillful blow, dealt by the headsman of Calais. 

A signal gun was fired to announce the consummation of the 
tragedy to the impatient king, who, gaily attired for the chase, 
was awaiting the joyful tidings in Richmond Park. When the 
echoes of the distant report reached his ear, the relieved widower 
exclaimed : " Ha ! ha ! the deed is done ! Uncouple the hounds 
and away 1" He then dashed off at lightning pace for the scene 
of his bloody nuptials at Wolf Hall, where Jane Seymour, in 
the full knowledge that her queen and mistress was at that houi 
undergoing her mortal agony at the Tower of London, was 
preparing to wed the remorseless tyrant who had slain her. 

The mangled remains of the hapless Anne, having been 
covered with a sheet by the attendant ladies, were placed by 
them in an elm chest which had been used for storing arrows ; 
they were then conveyed to the church within the Tower, and 
hastily buried in a trench beside the coffins of her brother and 
friends. No funeral rites were performed over the grave, except, 
doubtless, a hurried prayer whispered by the trembling lips of 
gentle Mary Wyatt. 

During the following night, according to a tradition now for 
three centuries uncontradicted, the old elm chest was secretly 
conveyed to Salle Church in Norfolk, where it was committed to 
consecrated ground. A black marble slab, devoid of inscription 

13 



318 AX NE BOLE YN. 

or date, is pointed out to this day as the funereal monument of 
Anne Boleyn. The following passage would hardly have been 
written by Wyatt, in his pathetic account of Queen Anne's death, 
had not her remains been honored by other ceremonies than 
those which immediately followed her execution: "God," he 
says, "provided for her corpse sacred burial, even in a place, as 
it were, consecrate to innocence." 

Anne Boleyn having been the recognized cause of the separa- 
tion of England from the Romish communion, her character has 
been from that time to this the subject of fierce denunciation on 
the part of Catholic polemical writers. They have striven elabo- 
rately to prove her unchaste before marriage and adulterous 
afterwards. Protestant authors, on the other hand, urge the 
fact of her marriage with Henry as conclusive proof of her virtue, 
and repel the charges upon which the cruel monarch caused her 
to be condemned to death as slanderous and futile. That she 
was ambitious and unscrupulous after she had resolved to 
obtain the crown, will hardly be contested ; but it will not be 
denied either, that had not the king interfered, she would have 
amply gratified her tastes, her feelings and her ambition, by an 
unostentatious union with Lord Percy. After her trial, her con- 
duct was in every way admirable ; and she seems to have been 
absorbed in indignation at the baseness of her oppressors and 
anxiety for her posthumous fame. Anne Boleyn enabled Henry 
VIII. — whom the pope had once in flattery called the Defender 
of the Faith — to become the unworthy instrument of the intro- 
duction of the Reformation into England ; and as such, her 
history would always be interesting, even if she were not also 
remarkable as the victim of a monarch's heartlessness, and as an 
illustration of the state of English jurisprudence in her time. 
That she lent her influence to aid William Tyndal, Miles Cover- 
dale and John Rogers, the martyr, in their translation — the first 
attempted — of the Scriptures into the English tongue, is not her 
least title to respect and grateful remembrance. 



MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 



Mary Stuart, celebrated above all other women for her 
beauty and her misfortunes, was the third child of James V. of 
Scotland, and was born on the 7th of December, 1542. By her 
father's death, seven days afterwards — his two sons having died in 
infancy — Mary succeeded, when but a week old, to the throne of 
a kingdom torn asunder by political and religious dissensions, and 
suffering from the consequences of a calamitous war with Eng- 
land. Henry VIII., then upon the English throne, conceived the 
idea, upon Mary's birth, of marrying her to his son Edward by 
Jane Seymour, and thus peacefully annexing Scotland to his 
crown ; he lost no time, therefore, in making the proposal, but it 
was received with little favor by the Scottish nobles. The young 
queen, when nine months old, was crowned by Cardinal Beaton ; 
after the ceremony, the queen-mother, informed of a report that 
the infant was sickly, caused her to be unswaddled in the presence 
of the English ambassador, who wrote home that she was as 
goodly a child as he had seen of her age. 

Mary spent the two first years of her life in the palaee of 
Linlithgow, in which she was born ; here she had the small pox, 
but in a mild form probably, as it left no trace. Her three fol- 
lowing years were passed in Stirling Castle ; in her sixth year she 

319 



320 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

was removed, on account of the vicinity of that residence to the 
scene of partisan troubles, to Inchmahome, a sequestered island in 
the Lake of Monteith. Four young ladies of rank, of her own 
age, were appointed to keep her company in this lonely spot ; 
here Mary Stuart, with the four Maries who formed her society — 
Mary Beaton, Mary Livingstone, Mary Fleming and Mary Seaton 
— remained till her mother and the regent, sanctioned by the 
Scottish parliament, betrothed her to the French dauphin, Francis, 
the son of Henry II. and Catherine de Medicis. Such an alliance 
was felt both by the Scotch and the French to protect them in a 
measure against the designs of the English monarch. The treaty 
stipulated that Mary should be sent to France to be educated at 
the French court, till the nuptials could be solemnized. She was 
delivered to the French admiral at Dumbarton, in July, 1548, 
and landed at Brest on the 14th of August. She was received 
with royal honors ; during her progress to St. Germain, near 
Paris, the prisons in every town through which she passed were 
opened and the prisoners set free. She was sent, with the king's 
daughters, to a convent, where she was instructed in the elements 
of education. Here the tranquillity of a life of seclusion made 
such a deep impression upon her naturally fervent and enthusi- 
astic disposition, that she soon expressed a desire to take the veil 
and enter the cloister for life. Henry, whose ambitious projects 
would have been defeated by such a step, resolved to remove her 
to the gayer scenes of the court. The unhappy princess shed 
floods of tears upon her separation from her vestal sisters, 
but Henry shared the opinions of his father upon the priesthood, 
that monks were fit for little else than teaching linnets to whistle, 
and persisted in his determination. 

This was the era of polite learning in France. George 
Buchanan was Mary's professor in Latin, a language in which it 
was then indispensable even for ladies to attain proficiency. She 
studied rhetoric with Fauchet, history with Pasquier, and poetry 
with the gallant and amiable Ronsard. She spoke French and 



MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 321 

her native tongue with equal facility. She followed the stag 
with her maids of honor ; she played on the lute and the virgi- 
nals ; in winter she erected mimic ice-fortresses, with all the 
science of an engineer ; and she had but one rival in the minuet. 
She excelled in the composition of devices — an art which con- 
sisted in the skillful application of a few precise and expressive 
words, in the form of a motto, to an engraving, picture, or other 
work of art This amusement was very popular at court, and 
was termed " an eloquent species of trifling.' 7 

The nuptials of Francis and Mary took place at Notre Dame 
on the 24th of April, 1558, the bride being in her sixteenth 
year. The spectacle was one of the most imposing which the 
Parisians of that age had been summoned to witness. As the 
procession returned from the cathedral, largess was proclaimed 
among the people in the name of the King and Queen of Scots. 
Catherine de Medicis and Mary sat in the same palanquin, a car- 
dinal walking on either hand. The mummeries and artifices dis- 
played at the banquet were of the most costly and ingenious 
description. Twelve horses, moved by mechanism, covered with 
cloths of gold and mounted by the scions of noble houses, 
pranced into the hall. They were followed by six galleys, 
decorated after the manner of Cleopatra's barge, which sailed 
along the tables ; each contained two seats, one of which only 
was occupied. As each galley advanced, the cavalier who 
manned it snatched from among the spectators the willing and 
probably expectant object of his vows. The festivities were con 
eluded by jousts and tournaments. 

The contemporaries of Mary Stuart are unanimous in extolling 
her unusual beauty. In stature she was majestic, being, like her 
mother, above the ordinary height. Her person was finely pro- 
portioned, and all her movements were graceful and dignified. 
Her hair was auburn, clustering in luxuriant ringlets ; her eyes 
were of chestnut color, a darker shade of the same hue ; her nose 
was Grecian, her brow high and open, her complexion clear, her 



322 MARY, QUEEN OF SOOTS. 

skin white ; her cheeks were rose-tinted, not rosy. Her lips 
were full, and a dimple in her chin gave expression to thai 
usually expressionless feature. These lineaments were so charm- 
ingly animated by the light suffused from the soul within, that 
physical and spiritual beauty contended for the palm. The gal- 
lant Brantome, whose opinion upon Diana de Poitiers we have 
cited, compared her to the sun at mid-day, and declared that no 
man ever saw her without losing his heart. Mary sometimes 
dressed herself in a complete Highland costume, and when thus 
arrayed in the Stuart tartan, delighted to testify her regard for 
Scotland, by appearing in public. Brantome declared her a god- 
dess even in this "barbarous and astonishing garb ;" and added, 
"if she appeared so beautiful when thus dressed like a savage, 
what must she not be in her rich robes made a la Francaise ?'' 
The younger brother of Francis, afterwards Charles IX., passion- 
ately exclaimed that he considered his brother the happiest man 
on earth, to possess a creature of so much loveliness. But the 
most spontaneous tribute to her matchless beauty was offered on 
the occasion of a religious ceremony in the streets of Paris. 
Mary, then in her 15th year, was walking in the procession, 
dressed in white and holding a lighted torch in her hand. A 
woman in the crowd, startled by the lovely apparition, stopped 
her and asked with reverential accent, "Are you not an angel?" 
At this time, Mary Tudor, Queen of England, daughter of 
Hemy Till, by Katherine of Aragon, died, having succeeded 
Edward YL, Henry's son by Jane Seymour. The parliament 
declared that the succession was vested in Elizabeth, Henry's 
daughter by Anne Boleyn, and the voice of the nation ratified 
this decree. The guardians of Mary Stuart, however, chose 
this inauspicious moment to press her claims to the English 
throne, basing them upon the following argument : — Mary was 
the daughter of James V. of Scotland, whose mother, wife of 
James IY., was the eldest daughter of Henry VII. of England, 
and consequently sister of Henry VIII. If the two daughters of 



MARY, QUEEN OP SOOTS. 323 

Henry YIIL, Mary and Elizabeth, were, as he had caused them 
to be declared, illegitimate, Mary Stuart, his grand-niece, was 
the next heir to the crown. But after Henry's death the parlia- 
ment reversed his decision and pronounced his daughters legiti- 
mate. Mary Tudor had reigned, and now Elizabeth was sum- 
moned to succeed her. The people acquiesced without giving a 
thought to the Scottish princess. The course of her partisans in 
pushing her forward as a claimant was, therefore, in the highest 
degree ill-advised. 

In July, 1559, Mary Stuart became Queen of France, by the 
death of Henry II. and the accession of Francis. She was 
already Queen of Scotland, and, in the case of the death of 
Elizabeth, would become also Queen of England. History has 
chronicled few such instances of the concentration of the gifts of 
fortune upon one single head. But Mary's grandeur was of short 
duration. Francis died after a reign of seventeen months, and 
his wife was no longer Queen of France. Charles IX. succeeded, 
his mother, Catherine de Medicis, reigning in his stead ; in her 
Mary found an inveterate foe. She retired at first to Rheims, 
to weep over the grave of her mother, and there resolved, that 
as France was no longer the home which it once had been, it 
was her duty to return to that other land which owed her alle- 
giance. She sent to Elizabeth to demand of her the courtesy 
usually extended to princes who had occasion to venture upon 
the water — the favor of a free passage. Elizabeth, indignant at 
Mary's refusal to ratify a treaty made between herself and the 
heads of the reformed religious party in Scotland, one of the 
terms of which was a renunciation, on the part of Mary, of all 
claims to the English crown, refused the request in the presence 
of a numerous audience, thus making the denial public, and seek- 
ing to render the breach of court etiquette as flagrant as possible. 
Mary still resolved to depart, independent of Elizabeth's consent, 
though it was with deep grief that she looked forward to a life in 
a coimtry where barbarism characterized the manners, turbulence 



324 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

the politics, and fanaticism the religion of the people. She set 
sail late in August from Calais, and as she gazed at the receding 
shore, exclaimed : " Farewell, France ! farewell beloved country, 
which I shall never more behold!" As long as daylight continued 
she remained straining her eyes toward the coast; when darkness 
shrouded the sea and the land, she refused to retire to her cabin, 
but caused a bed to be spread for her upon the deck, upon which 
she wept herself to sleep. 

In less than a week, Mary arrived in the Frith of Forth, and 
landed at Leith, a suburb of Edinburgh. She soon after entered 
her capital and established herself in Holyrood palace. Her sensa- 
tions of dismay, almost of terror, may easily be comprehended. 
The poverty of the land contrasted woefully with the smiling val- 
leys of France ; the weather was thick, wet and " dolorous;" the 
poor trappings of the horses, the meagreness of the bonfires and 
illuminations, recalled, by comparison, the splendor of the public 
rejoicings of Paris and St. Germain. A knot of reformers, who 
sang psalms under her window, and a band of bagpipers, who 
performed a serenade before her gate, quite disconcerted both 
her and her attendants ; and BrantCme, who had followed in her 
suite, alludes to the dismal concert in the expressive words, "He! 
quelle musique I" After a time, however, Mary recovered her 
gaiety, and introduced into her palace a few of the amusements 
to which she had been accustomed. She thus gave great offence 
to John Knox, who inveighed against such practices from the 
pulpit, and who even wrote — " So soon as ever her French fil- 
locks, and fiddlers, and others of that band, got the house alone, 
there might be seen skipping not very comely for honest women. 
Her common talk was, in secret, that she saw nothing in Scotland 
but gravity, which was altogether repugnant to her nature, for 
she was brought up in joyousness.''' 

For a few years Mary led a tranquil though a busy life. She 
continued to worship in the forms of the Catholic religion, though 
by so doing she at first deeply offended her subjects. She sought 



MARY, QUEENOFSCOTS. 325 

to conciliate Knox and the reformers, and to introduce the refine- 
ments of continental civilization into the country. She devoted 
five hours a day to public affairs ; and while she listened to the 
advice of her counsellors and joined in discussion with them, 
worked diligently at her embroidery. She studied the books 
which she had brought with her from France, and gave one hour a 
day to Latin. She made various excursions through the country, 
endearing herself to the people by her moderation and urbanity. 
She was benevolent and attentive to the poor. She was fond of 
botany and horticulture, and planted the first sycamore tree 
which ever grew upon Scottish soil. She delighted in hunting, 
hawking, dancing and archery, and excelled in the game of chess. 
Her love for music induced her to maintain a band of twelve 
minstrels, and to introduce into her religious worship, as a sup- 
port to the organ, a trumpet, drum, fife, bagpipe and tabor. It 
was as a bass singer that David Rizzio, a Piedmontese, of whom 
we shall hereafter have occasion to speak, was recommended to 
her notice. 

With Mary's second marriage, commenced the vicissitudes 
and calamities of her life. The choice of a husband from among 
her numerous suitors was a task of no little delicacy. The Duke 
of Anjou, her late husband's brother, and afterwards, upon the 
death of Charles IX., King of France, was rejected on account of 
his relationship ; other royal aspirants were refused on account of 
her objections to a continental and Catholic alliance. Elizabeth, 
miserable in her childlessness, desired Mary to remain a widow, 
and sent her word that if she married without her consent, she 
should induce the Parliament of England to set aside her succes- 
sion. She, nevertheless, as a matter of form, offered to guide 
Mary's choice, and suggested her own favorite, Dudley, Earl of 
Leicester, well knowing that the Scottish queen would spurn the 
low born English subject. At last, Mary fixed her preference 
upon a man four years her junior, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, 
after herself, and failing issue by Elizabeth, the next heir to the 



326 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

English throne. His personal attractions were great ; he was 
tall, graceful, of agreeable and animated features ; Mary said of 
him that he was " the best proportioned long man she had seen." 
He excelled in all showy accomplishments, and affected a fond- 
ness for music and poetry. Kizzio and others familiar with 
Mary's tastes instructed him in what manner he could best pay 
his court to the queen. Though destitute of true religious feel- 
ing, he was a Protestant in outward form, and Mary was decided, 
in deference to the desire of her subjects, to marry none but an 
adherent of the established church. She was deceived in Darn- 
ley's mind, character and education, and during an attack of the 
measles, by which her suitor was confined to his room, she made 
up her mind, in her sympathy for the sufferer, to wed him when 
he should recover. Having conferred upon him various titles, 
and among them that of Duke of Albany, and having obtained 
a dispensation from the pope — as she and Darnley were first 
cousins — Mary Stuart was married to her lover at five in the 
morning of the 29th of July, 1565, in Holyrood chapel, bestow- 
ing upon him, by the act, the title and some portion of the 
authority of King of Scotland. A handsomer couple had never 
been seen in Scotland ; Mary was in the full flush of her beauty 
at the age of twenty-three ; Darnley, though only nineteen, ap- 
peared like a man young at thirty. Armed men stood around 
the altar, as Elizabeth's hostility might be expected at any 
moment to manifest itself in overt acts. Mary was dressed in 
black, in memory of her late husband, but immediately after the 
ceremony, she assumed garments more in keeping with her new 
condition. 

For a time, Mary was happy, and she lavished upon her 
husband every token of love and every mark of distinction. But 
the conviction forced itself upon her, at the expiration of a few 
months, that she had united her fortunes with a weak, headstrong 
and inexperienced boy. He was intemperate, licentious, violent ; 
so fickle and indiscreet, that he abjured the Protestant faith and 



MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 327 

became a Catholic, thus mortally offending the reformers without 
winning the Catholics. On one occasion, at a civic banquet, while 
under the influence of wine, he spoke to the queen so insolently 
that she left the table in tears. He was, besides, exceedingly and 
unreasonably ambitious, and Mary felt obliged, for her own sake 
and for that of her country, to refuse him several of his more 
importunate demands. Yexed and irritated, Darnley sought 
among the adherents and friends of his wife some one to whom 
he could attribute her alienation from himself, and upon whom 
he could wreak his vengeance. 

A number of designing nobles, jealous of the favor enjoyed 
by Pizzio, now French secretary to the queen and one of the 
most faithful servants Mary ever had, and anxious to promote a 
permanent state of hostility between Darnley and his wife, per- 
suaded him that Rizzio was the occasion of the queen's displeasure. 
They knew that the Piedmontese was unpopular in the country, 
being unjustly suspected of exerting an undue influence over 
Mary, and often spoken of as the minion of the pope and the 
minister of antichrist. The simple truth appears to have been 
that "he was much respected by his mistress, not for any beauty 
or external grace that was in him, being rather old, ugly, austere, 
and disagreeable, but for his great fidelity, wisdom and prudence, 
and on account of several other good qualities which adorned his 
mind." The conspirators, who numbered five hundred, easily 
engaged Darnley in a plot to assassinate Rizzio, and appointed 
the evening of Saturday, the 9th of March, 1566, for the perpe- 
tration of the crime. One of their number, Patrick Lord Puth- 
ven, a coward, a bigot, and a broken down invalid, undertook to 
head the enterprise. 

Mary, totally unconscious of the plot now so near its consum- 
mation, sat down to supper in a cabinet communicating with her 
bedroom, at seven in the evening. Some half a dozen persons, 
friends or attendants, were with her, and among them was 
Rizzio. At eight, Darnley entered, sat down beside her, and 

21 



328 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

threw his arms familiarly around her waist. Finding Rizzio 
there, he remained — the signal to the conspirators that every- 
thing was ready for the attempt. Ruthven rushed into the 
room, equipped in complete armor. He had lately risen from a 
sick bed ; his eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow ; his face was 
ashy pale, and his whole appearance haggard and frightful. 
Exhausted by the effort, his knees shook, and his armor rattled 
and clanked loosely upon his limbs. He threw himself into a 
chair, and gazed fiercely upon Rizzio. The queen indignantly 
bade him begone, but she had scarcely uttered the words, before 
torches gleamed in the passage way, and the room was filled with 
armed and resolute assassins. Ruthven drew his dagger, and, 
exclaiming that his business was with Rizzio, endeavored to seize 
him ; the wretched secretary, seeing that his time was come, and 
losing all presence of mind, pressed into the recess of a window, 
clasping the folds of Mary's gown, and exclaiming, in his native 
tongue, " Giustizia ! Giustizia !" Mary, though thus placed 
between the conspirators and their victim, retained her self- 
possession. She ordered Ruthven to withdraw, threatening him 
with an accusation of high treason. She called upon Darnley to 
protect her, but the recreant husband chose to remain a passive 
spectator of the scene. In the confusion, the lights were thrown 
down and extinguished ; with hideous oaths, the assassins de- 
manded the life of the trembling Piedmontese. The first blow 
struck was dealt by the bastard George Douglas ; he seized 
Darnley 's dagger from his belt, stabbed Rizzio with it over Mary's 
shoulder, and left it sticking in the wound. Rizzio was dragged 
to the door of the presence-chamber and dispatched ; fifty-six 
wounds were found upon his body. The alarm bell was rung, 
and the civic authorities of Edinburgh hastened to Holyrood 
palace. They called upon the queen to show herself at the 
window and assure them of her safety. But Mary, who was 
closely confined in her cabinet, and told "that if she spoke to 
the townspeople they would cut her in collops and cast her over 



MARY, QUEEN OF SOOTS. 329 

the walls," was not permitted to comply with their request. 
Darnley, however, assured the crowd that the queen was well 
and required no assistance. The ruffian Ruthven, returning im- 
brued in Rizzio's blood, called for a cup of wine, and seating 
himself in the presence of Mary, drained it at one draught while 
sue was standing before him. 

Mary was detained a prisoner through the night, and the 
next morning was visited by Darnley. She was ignorant of the 
extent of his guilt, and believed his protestations that he had no 
hand in the murder of her secretary. She employed all her 
eloquence to convince him that in associating with this desperate 
cabal he was acting a dangerous part ; that his only hope of 
advancement lay in her good will, not in the friendship of assas- 
sins and agitators. Darnley, always vacillating, and now once 
more under the influence of the lovely pleader before him, who, 
should no evil consequence ensue from the alarm of the night, 
might in a few months become the mother of a king, yielded to 
her entreaties and consented to fly with her to Dunbar. Accom- 
panied by the captain and two officers of the guard, they escaped 
on horseback at midnight. In five days, Mary, surrounded by 
her loyal nobles, returned in triumph to Edinburgh. The con- 
spirators fled in all directions, and Ruthven died before the 
summer of the disease to which he was a prey. But two of the 
conspirators were executed for Rizzio's murder, the ringleaders 
contriving to obtain their pardon from the generous and indul- 
gent queen. 

On the 19th of June, Mary gave birth to a son, afterwards 
James I. of England and VI. of Scotland. The birth of a prince 
had been looked forward to as the greatest blessing which Provi- 
dence could vouchsafe to Mary's divided kingdom, and the intel- 
ligence was received with every demonstration of joy. Elizabeth 
was dancing at Greenwich when Mary's letter, communicating the 
tidings, arrived. "But so soon," says Melville, who bore the 
missive, " as the Secretary Churchill sounded the news in her 



330 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

ear of the prince's birth, all merriment was laid aside for that 
night ; every one that was present marvelling what might move 
so sudden a changement. For the queen sat down with her hand 
upon her cheek, and bursting out to some of her ladies how that 
the Queen of Scotland was lighter of a fair son, and that she was 
but a barren stock." After this envious and repining speech, 
she assured Melville that the joyful news he had brought had 
recovered her out of a heavy sickness which had held her for 
fifteen days ! The child was christened with great pomp, the 
festivities far surpassing in splendor and variety any which the 
kings and queens of Scotland had given upon similar occasions. 

The conduct of Darnley now became so outrageous, that Mary 
was often in tears, and was heard several times to exclaim : 
"Would I were dead!" The lords of her council urged a divorce, 
but she rejected the advice, saying, "I will that you do nothing 
by which any spot may be laid on my honor or conscience ; but 
wait till God of His goodness shall put a remedy to it." One of 
the most zealous advisers of the project of a divorce was the 
ambitious, reckless and dissolute James Hepburne, Earl of Both- 
well. He was the head of a powerful family ; and having always 
remained faithful to the interests of the queen, he stood high in 
her favor. Though he had been married but a few months pre- 
viously, he seems to have conceived at this period the daring 
scheme of succeeding to Darnley as King of Scotland and hus- 
band of the queen. Finding Mary resolved against applying for 
a divorce, he resolved to remove Darnley by violent means. He 
concocted a plot which has had few parallels in history for 
audacity, cruelty and villainy. He obtained a divorce from his 
wife, on the plea of consanguinity, and thus liberated from a tie 
which checked his soaring ambition, he awaited a favorable mo- 
ment for putting his plan into execution. 

Darnley was at this time taken sick of the small pox, at 
Glasgow. Mary at once set out to visit him ; " his danger," says 
Dr. Gilbert Stuart, "awakened all the gentleness of her nature, 



MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 331 

and she forgot the wrongs she had endured. Yielding to anxious 
and tender emotions, she left her capital and her palace, in the 
severest season of the year, to wait upon him. Her assiduities and 
kindnesses even communicated to him the most flattering solace- 
ment ; and while she lingered about his person with a fond solici- 
tude and a delicate attention, he felt that the sickness of his 
mind and the virulence of his disease were diminished." Upon 
his convalescence, she caused him to be removed to the vicinity 
of Holyrood and lodged in a house called the Kirk-of-Field. 
This mansion had been chosen by Bothwell and his accomplices, 
whose motives in the selection Mary was far from suspecting. 
They fixed upon it on account of its lonely situation, but recom- 
mended it to her "asa place of good air." Here Darnley spent 
ten days, Mary visiting him constantly, sometimes bringing her 
band of musicians from the palace, and often spending the night. 
Bothwell resolved upon blowing up the premises with gunpowder, 
and this point being settled, only delayed the execution of the 
plot till Mary should indicate, a sufficient time beforehand, her 
intention of sleeping a night at Holyrood. On the morning of 
Sunday, the 9th of February, Bothwell learned that the queen 
intended to be present that evening at the marriage of one of her 
waiting-maids, and could not, therefore, make a prolonged visit 
to the Kirk-of-Field. The gunpowder was stealthily conveyed 
to the house by his accomplices. Mary left Darnley at eleven 
o'clock and returned to Holyrood. Bothwell, to divert suspicion, 
appeared at the wedding, and soon afterwards joined the conspi- 
rators at the lonely house. The gunpowder was lying in a heap 
upon the floor, and they consulted for some time as to the best 
method of setting fire to it. They at last kindled one end of 
a piece of lint, four inches long, and retired to await the event. 

For a quarter of an hour not the slightest sound was heard 
Bothwell, nervous and impatient, was on the point of returning, 
when a sudden flash and a tremendous explosion terminated 
his suspense. The Kirk-of-Field was so violently rent asunder , 



332 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

that not a stone remained standing upon another. The body of 
Darnley was carried by the force of the explosion into a garden 
at some distance, where it was found lifeless, but with little 
external injury. Mary's distress, when informed of the disaster, 
knew no bounds ; she shut herself up in her apartment, and 
refused to see any one, even her counsellors, during the day 
which followed. 

Suspicion soon fell upon Bothwell, and upon the 12th of 
April, 1567, he was brought to trial in the Tolbooth of Edin- 
burgh. The indictment accused him of being " art and part of 
the cruel, odious, treasonable and abominable slaughter and 
murder of the um while the right high and mighty prince the 
king's grace, dearest spouse for the time to our sovereign lady 
the queen's majesty." Matthew, Earl of Lennox, Darnley 's 
father, had been summoned to act as public accuser, or " pur- 
suer." Instead of appearing, he sent a protest by a servant, in 
which he stated that the cause of his absence was the shortness 
of time, the want of the necessary proofs, and of friends and 
retainers to accompany him to the place of trial. Bothwell's 
counsel insisted upon their right to proceed at once with the 
action. The judges granted them the privilege, and a jury was 
chosen. Bothwell pleaded not guilty, and in the absence of the 
pursuer, no evidence was taken against him. The case being 
thus given to the jurors, they speedily acquitted Bothwell of the 
crime laid to his charge. The murderer at once published a 
challenge, offering to sustain his innocence, single-handed, against 
all such as might dare to maintain his guilt. No champion, 
however, ventured to appear. 

Bothwell's next object was to marry the queen, or rather, by 
marrying the queen, to obtain the crown of Scotland. He had 
little hope of inspiring her with any affection for his person, but 
seems to have expected to gain his ends by putting himself 
forward as the only man in the realm fit to cope with her turbu- 
lent subjects, or possessing sufficient resolution to enable Mary 



MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 333 

herself to maintain her seat upon the throne. On the 20th of 
April, he invited the members of parliament to a supper at 
Ainsly's tavern. When the wine had circulated freely, he pro- 
duced a document which he had previously drawn up, to the 
effect that the signers were heartily of the opinion that he ought 
to marry the queen, and that they would bind themselves to 
give him all necessary counsel and assistance. This, after con- 
sideration, was signed by all present but one. Armed with this 
formidable document, Bothwell, resolved that the caprice or dis- 
inclination of a woman should be no serious obstacle to his 
designs, collected a force of one thousand horsemen, and inter- 
cepting Mary while on her return from Stirling to Edinburgh 
seized her in the midst of her attendants, and carried her a 
prisoner to his castle at Dunbar. For ten days he kept her 
sequestrated, spending the whole time with her, calling to his aid 
every artifice of affected passion, of menace and of prayer. He 
flung himself at her feet, and even threatened her with dishonor 
and death. By force and fraud he at length triumphed over her 
resistance, and on the 15th of May the marriage took place. 

The first month of this ill-starred union was the most miser- 
able of Mary's life. Bothwell treated her with such indignity 
that he " caused her to shed abundance of salt tears." He kept 
her " environed with a continual guard of two hundred harque- 
buziers, day and night." It appeared subsequently that Both- 
well's previous wife had merely been divorced from him as a 
matter of form, her family consenting to it to permit Bothwell 
to prosecute his schemes of ambition, and that he was at this 
time maintaining her at home. "No wonder," says Bell, "that 
under such an accumulation of miseries — the suspicion with 
which she was regarded by foreign courts, the ready hatred of 
many of her more bigoted Presbyterian subjects, the de- 
pendence, almost amounting to a state of bondage, in which she 
was kept, and the brutal treatment she experienced from her 
worthless husband — no wonder that Mary was heard, in moments 

14 



334 MARY, QUEEN OF SOOTS. 

almost of distraction, to express an intention of committing 
suicide." 

It was not long before the very lords who had recommended 
the marriage, made it the pretext of rebellion against Bothwell 
and the absolute authority in which he was seeking to intrench 
himself. Both parties took up arms, and met at Carberry Hill. 
The first day passed in unavailing negotiations, and a battle must 
have ensued upon the second, had not Mary taken a decisive and 
most unexpected step during the night. She sent a message to 
the lords to the effect that she would quit Bothwell forever, if 
they would reconduct her in safety to Edinburgh and return to 
their allegiance. She persuaded Bothwell to retire from the 
field, and from that moment she never saw him again. She gave 
herself up to her lords, who, partly to gratify their retainers by 
allowing them to insult a Roman Catholic queen, partly because 
perfidy was more congenial to their nature than fidelity, con- 
ducted her, not to Holyrood, but to the castle of Loch Leven, 
situated in the centre of a lake and owned by Lady Douglas, the 
mother of one of the most powerful of the rebels, and a woman 
of harsh and unfeeling temper. 

To the custody of this person Mary was consigned ; she was 
kept in durance for many weeks, her enemies trusting that her 
spirit would be broken by the ill usage to which she was sub- 
jected, and that she would finally consent to abdicate her crown, 
as a means of obtaining relief. On the 25th of July, two depu- 
ties sent by the rebels to propose terms of submission had an 
interview with her. Sir Robert Melville, whose duty it was 
merely to argue and endeavor to persuade her to affix her signa- 
ture to the act of abdication, having signally failed, called in 
Lord Lindsay, his colleague, whose assigned province it was to 
threaten her with death, if she refused compliance. Lindsay, 
a^med and helmeted, rushed into the room, with the documents 
prepared to receive her signature. Seizing her hand in his 
gauntleted palm he swore that unless she subscribed the deeds 



MARY, QUEEN OF SOOTS. 335 

without delay, he would himself sign them in her blood. Mary 
nearly swooned with terror, for she remembered that Lindsay 
was by Ruthven's side when Rizzio was slain at her feet. Mel- 
ville, in order to prevent her from fainting, whispered in her ear 
that a signature thus given in captivity and extorted by force, 
could not be valid. Lindsay, his eyes now gleaming with rage, 
pointed to the lake, and vowed that if she hesitated one moment 
longer, he would cast her headlong from the castle. Mary 
mechanically seized a pen, and, without reading a syllable of the 
papers, calling on those present to witness that she did so only 
through fear of death, affixed her name to them with a trembling 
hand. Two days afterwards, her son, who was little more than 
a year old, was publicly crowned at Stirling. He was educated 
by Mary's deadliest foes, and his subsequent career too plainly 
showed that a son may be so wrought upon in his tender years 
as to part even with that first and holiest of sentiments, affection 
for a mother. 

Mary made two attempts to escape from Loch Leven. The 
first was unsuccessful ; she had already taken her seat in the 
boat which was to convey her to the shore, when she was 
betrayed by the extreme whiteness and beauty of her hand. 
A month afterwards, a second attempt was made with more 
success : Mary assisted the single oarsman in rowing, and upon 
reaching the shore, mounted a horse and galloped the whole of 
the night. In three days, she was at the head of 6,000 men 
devoted to her cause. Murray, the regent during the nonage of 
the king, collected his forces and the battle of Langside ensued. 
The queen beheld the conflict, and saw the fortune of the day 
turn signally against her. She saw her army in full flight before 
the victorious usurper. Her general, Lord Herries, took her 
horse's bridle and turned his head from the dismal scene. Mary 
fled to the south, and first sought repose at the distance of sixty 
miles from the field, at the Abbey of Dundreddan ; rejecting the 
advice of Herries — which was to seek protection in France — she 



336 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

adopted the fatal resolution of throwing herself upon the com- 
passion and generosity of Elizabeth. As she approached the 
frontier, her resolution faltered ; but as no other alternative pre- 
sented itself, she pushed on and entered Elizabeth's dominions 
at the town of Carlisle. 

The English queen, incapable of magnanimity or pity, be- 
haved towards her fallen sister with the most odious hypocrisy 
and artifice. In order to preserve a show of decency, she sent 
noblemen of suitable rank to receive her, having, however, in- 
structed them on no account to suffer her to leave the kingdom. 
She refused to admit her to an interview, alleging the serious 
imputation under which she labored of being accessory to Darn- 
ley's death, as a sufficient motive. Mary, in her indignation, as 
Elizabeth clearly foresaw, at once offered to submit her cause to 
her, and to produce convincing proofs of her innocence. Eliza- 
beth thus craftily became the umpire between Mary and her 
subjects. She soon after appointed a conference to be held at 
York, where Mary, compelled to stifle her indignation at the 
humiliation, was, as it were, tried by the commissioners of 
Queen Elizabeth. Murray appeared in person, and accused 
Mary of having maintained an illicit intercourse with Both well 
during her husband's lifetime, and of having been privy to 
Darnley's murder. In support of the first allegation, he pro- 
duced eight love-letters, eleven amatory sonnets, and one mar- 
riage contract, all alleged to be in the handwriting of Mary, 
and addressed by her to Both well. Her representatives, by her 
command, repelled the accusation with indignation, and declared 
the letters forgeries, which they have since been sufficiently 
proved. The conference was concluded, as had been the pur- 
pose of Elizabeth from the beginning, without any decision being 
rendered ; Murray, though accused by Mary of having resorted 
to force to secure her abdication, was permitted to return to 
Scotland, and Mary naturally expected to be also set at lib- 
erty. But Elizabeth sent her word that liberty was only to 



MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 337 

be obtained by voluntarily renouncing her throne and country ; 
she would then be allowed to reside in privacy and without 
molestation in England. Disdaining liberty upon these disgrace- 
ful terms, she remained the captive of her cruel and ungenerous 
sister queen. 

The last eighteen years of Mary's life were spent in hopeless 
captivity. She was transferred from dungeon to dungeon, and 
placed successively in the charge of various noblemen, but no 
improvement v as permitted in her condition. On the contrary, 
each succeeding year found her with diminished comforts and in 
failing health. The dampness of her prisons rendered her rheu- 
matic and infirm at the age of thirty. "Here the sun," she 
wrote to a friend in France, " can never penetrate, neither does 
any pure air ever visit this habitation, on which descend driz- 
zling damps and eternal fogs, to such excess that not an article 
of furniture can be placed beneath the roof, but in four days it 
becomes covered with green mould." Mary's principal occupa- 
tion was needle-work ; she attended to her religious duties with 
solicitous regularity ; and from time to time she sought to beguile 
the heavy hours in French composition. She endured with un- 
varying gentleness the discomforts of her situation — a proof at 
once of the sweetness of her temper and of the tranquillity of her 
conscience. 

At last, in the year 1586, the termination of her woes ap- 
proached. Elizabeth, during the eighteen years of Mary's cap- 
tivity, had been stretched upon the rack of fear for her own 
life and throne. Plot had succeeded plot, many of them with 
the ostensible purpose of releasing the Queen of Scots. Mary 
openly avowed her intention of cooperating with those who 
aspired to be her deliverers, and of accepting freedom at their 
hands, but she strenuously denied that she had been, or would 
be, privy to any attempt upon the person or against the au- 
thority of Elizabeth. The latter, failing to implicate Mary 
in any traitorous project, finally mduced a servile parliament 



338 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

to pass a law to the effect that not only conspirators, but those 
in whose cause they conspired, though innocent or even igno- 
rant of their acts, should equally suffer death, the penalty of 
treason. Babington's plot soon after offered an excuse for 
bringing Mary to trial under this law. 

Anthony Babington was a young man of fortune in Derby- 
shire. He had long cherished a romantic desire to perform some 
chivalrous exploit for the deliverance of Mary. He became the 
first English proselyte to an idea conceived in France, that Eliza- 
beth's late excommunication by Pope Pius Y. had been dictated 
by the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The queen, 
therefore, in the eyes of the fanatics holding this belief, was 
an enemy of heaven, and her assassination would be an act 
calculated to obtain the divine favor. The release of Mary 
formed part of the purpose of the conspirators, and she con- 
sented to enter into their schemes as far as her own interests 
were concerned, but no further. The plot was discovered, and 
all engaged in it were arrested. Fourteen of them were at once 
condemned and executed, and Mary was arraigned as an accessory. 
She was imprisoned at the time at the castle of Fotheringay, in 
Northamptonshire, under the charge of Sir Amias Paulet. On 
the 11th of October, Elizabeth's commissioners, appointed to hear 
the cause, arrived. Mary refused to acknowledge their jurisdic- 
tion. "I am no subject to Elizabeth," she said, "but an inde- 
pendent queen as well as she ; and I will consent to nothing 
unbecoming the majesty of a crowned head." For two days she 
combated their arguments and denied their authority, but was 
finally entrapped by the specious plea that by avoiding a trial she 
must inevitably excite suspicion and injure her own reputation. 
She yielded to these insidious representations, and consented to 
defend herself against a charge of high treason. 

" There was never an occasion," says Bell, "throughout the 
whole of Mary's life, in which she appeared to greater advantage 
than this. In the presence of all the pomp, learning and talent 



MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 339 

of England, she stood alone and undaunted ; evincing, in the mo- 
dest dignity of her bearing, a mind conscious of its own integrity 
and superior to the malice of fortune. Elizabeth's craftiest law- 
yers and ablest politicians were assembled to probe her to the 
quick — to press home every argument which ingenuity could de- 
vise and eloquence embellish — to dazzle her with a blaze of eru- 
dition or involve her in a maze of technical perplexities. Mary 
had no counsellor, no adviser, no friend. Her very papers, to 
which she might have wished to refer, had been taken from her ; 
and there was not one to plead her cause or defend her inno- 
cence. Her bodily infirmities imparted only a greater lustre to 
her mental preeminence ; and not in all the fascinating splendor of 
her youth and beauty, not on the morning of her first bridal day, 
when Paris rang with acclamations in her praise, was Mary Stuart 
so much to be admired, as when, weak and worn out, she stood 
calmly before the myrmidons of a rival queen." 

Mary defended herself with composure, dignity and acuteness. 
She denied all connection with Babington's conspiracy, except so 
far as it aimed at her own deliverance. " I would disdain," she 
said, u to purchase all that is most valuable upon earth by the 
assassination of the meanest of the human race ; and worn out, 
as I now am, by cares and sufferings, the prospect of a crown is 
not so inviting that I should ruin my soul in order to obtain it. 
Neither am I a stranger to the feelings of humanity, nor un- 
acquainted with the duties of religion, and it is my nature to be 
more inclined to the devotion of Esther than to the sword of Ju- 
dith. If ever I have given consent by my words, or even by my 
thoughts, to any attempt against the life of the Queen of Eng- 
land, far from declining the judgment of men, I shall not even 
pray for the mercy of God.' 7 But eloquence and arguments 
were thrown away upon judges instructed beforehand what ver- 
dict to render, and a sentence, universally declared iniquitous, 
was pronounced against her. 

Elizabeth, deaf to the reproaches and menaces by which she 



340 MARY, QUE EX OF SOOTS. 

was assailed, indifferent to the horror which the outrage of 
Mary's condemnation had excited throughout Europe, was firmly 
resolved to execute the sentence, though she affected sensibility 
and hesitation. Her subservient parliament dissuaded her from 
leniency, calling to her mind the example of God's vengeance 
upon Saul for sparing Agag. She replied with the hypocritical 
prayer that they would consider if the public safety might not be 
otherwise provided for. But her meaning was well understood, 
and the request was fearlessly repeated. Elizabeth, before 
signing the death-warrant, let fall an intimation, in her anxiety 
to shift upon others the responsibility of Mary's death, which 
might stimulate Paulet, the jailer, to extricate her from the 
dilemma, by assassinating or poisoning his royal prisoner. Pau- 
let rejected the proposal with disdain. Upon this Elizabeth 
ordered her secretary, Davidson, to bring her the death-warrant, 
to which she deliberately and without shrinking, affixed her 
signature. On the 7th of February, the Earls of Shrewsbury, 
Kent, and others, commissioned to attend Queen Mary's exe- 
cution, arrived at Fotheringay Castle. Mary was ill and in bed, 
but being informed that ihey came upon a matter of import- 
ance, she arose and received them. They broke to her gently 
the nature of their errand, and one of their number read 
the warrant for her execution. Mary replied, making the sign 
of the cross, that she had expected death, and was not unpre- 
pared to die, though she regretted that the order proceeded from 
Elizabeth. She then protested upon a volume of the New Testa- 
ment lying before her, that she had never, directly or indirectly, 
sought or compassed the assassination of Elizabeth — a protesta- 
tion which the earls regarded as without significance, made as it 
was upon a Catholic Bible. Mary then asked if no foreign 
nation had interposed in her behalf ; if her son, James of Scot- 
land, was well and had manifested any interest in her fate. She 
then inquired of Shrewsbury when her execution was to take 
place. He replied that the hour appointed was eight, the next 



MARY, QUEEN OP SOOTS. 341 

morning. Mary betrayed some agitation at the indecorous 
haste thus made, saying that it was more sudden than she had 
expected. She requested to be left alone, that she might make 
her will and otherwise prepare for death. 

Upon the departure of the earls, Mary bade her waiting maids 
hasten supper. " Come, Jane Kennedy," she said, " cease your 
weeping and be busy." When the sad meal was over, she 
pledged every one of her attendants in a glass of wine ; they 
fell upon their knees to drink the melancholy toast. Upon 
the margin of the inventory of her wardrobe, furniture and 
jewels, she wrote the name of the person to whom she wished 
each article to be given, forgetting none of her friends, either 
present or absent. She next composed her will, which is still 
extant, writing rapidly and without once lifting her pen from 
the paper, and covering four large closely-written pages. No 
subject or person of consequence was omitted. She sent to her 
confessor, whom she was not permitted to see, as he was a 
Catholic, requesting him to pray for her, and to indicate to her 
such passages in the Bible as were most appropriate for her to 
read. She retired to bed at two in the morning, but was unable 
to sleep. Her lips were frequently in motion, and she held her 
hands clasped and raised imploringly towards heaven. 

She rose at daybreak, and with the assistance of her maids, 
who had passed the night in weeping, dressed herself with studied 
care, choosing a robe of rich black silk, bordered with crimson 
velvet, over which was thrown a satin mantle. At the appointed 
hour the sheriff appeared, and Mary, after a brief prayer, signified 
her willingness to accompany him. Her maids expected to 
follow her to the scaffold, but the harsh order of Elizabeth was 
that Mary should proceed thither unattended. They were torn 
from her and the door was closed upon their shrieks and lamen- 
tations. Jane Kennedy and one other were subsequently allowed 
to support her to the scaffold. This was a platform erected in 
the hall in which she had been tried. On one side of the block 



342 MARY, QUEEN OF SOOTS. 

were the executioner and his aid ; on the other, the Earls of 
Kent and Shrewsbury. The death-warrant was read, but the 
smile and absent expression upon Mary's features told that her 
thoughts had preceded her soul to the spirit-land. Her officious 
persecutors now besought her to join them in devotion according 
to the Protectant form. She declined, but falling on her knees, 
and clasping her crucifix in her hands, prayed fervently alone, but 
aloud. She prayed for herself, for the Queen of England, for her 
friends and enemies. Jane Kennedy bound her eyes with a 
gold-bordered handkerchief, and Mary Stuart laid her head upon 
the block ; her last words were : " Oh Lord, in thee have I 
hoped, and into thy hands I commit my spirit." The exe- 
cutioner's arm was unskillful or unsteady, for it was at the third 
blow only that he separated her head from her body. His 
assistant then raised the head by the hair, crying, "God save 
Elizabeth, Queen of England!" The spectators were dissolved 
in tears, and but one deep voice — that of the Earl of Kent — 
responded "Amen!" 

Had Mary Stuart's career been as prosperous as it was 
calamitous, her life and character would probably have escaped 
censure. But there was such a preponderance of adversity, that 
many have been induced to give ready credence to the calumnies 
of which she was the object, conceiving that a queen who was so 
constantly unfortunate, must, by her own actions, in some degree 
have invited and deserved her fate. For two centuries Mary has 
furnished the theme of an acrimonious warfare to historians and 
controvertists ; but during the last fifty years all uncertainty 
has been set at rest, and the subject may be regarded as ex- 
hausted. We may now safely say with the Archbishop of Bruges, 
who was appointed to preach Mary's funeral sermon in Paris : 
"Marble, and brass, and iron decay, or are devoured by rust: 
but in no age, however long the world may endure, will the 
memory of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots and Dowager of France 
cease to be regarded with affectionate admiration.'' 



POCAHONTAS 



Captain John Smith, of Lincolnshire in England, after having 
spent an adventurous apprenticeship in the art of war in the Low 
Countries and in Turkey, set sail from London in December, 
1606, for the fertile and salubrious coasts of Virginia. Captain 
Bartholomew Gosnold, who had already made a prosperous 
voyage to New England, George Percy, the brother of the Earl 
of Northumberland, Mr. Wingfield, a merchant, and Mr. Hunt, 
a clergyman, accompanied Smith and the colonists, who, number- 
ing one hundred and five souls, embarked in three small vessels. 
They followed the old route by the Canaries and the West Indies. 
Smith became so popular with the colonists, that his jealous 
colleagues accused him of forming a conspiracy by which he was 
to make himself king of Virginia ; they kept him in prison 
during the remainder of the voyage. Land was discovered at 
the mouth of Chesapeake Bay late in April, 1607 ; it was named 
Cape Henry, in honor of the Prince of Wales. A river empty- 
ing its waters into the bay was named James River, in honor of 
the king. The strangers sailed into this stream, and ascended a 
distance of forty miles from its mouth. Here the landscape was 
so inviting, and the early beauties of a Virginia spring were so 
alluring, that on the 13th of May they resolved to pitch their 
22 ^ 



3-44 POCAHONTAS. 

tents ; and they gave to the site thus chosen the name of 
Jamestown. The river's bank was so bold that their ships rode 
in six fathoms water, though moored to the trees on the land. 

At this period, the extent of country now known as Virginia 
was occupied by twenty thousand Indians, eight thousand of 
them being the subjects of Powhatan, a savage of warlike 
renown and superior talents. His dominions, acquired by 
inheritance, he had extended by conquest, and by his arts and 
the force of his character, had united forty tribes under his own 
single authority. He looked with enmity upon the colonists, and 
circumstances made him at an early period their implacable foe. 
Before many months had elapsed, the chief management of their 
affairs devolved upon Smith, a result which all had regarded 
as inevitable sooner or later. He devoted himself energetically 
to the building of Jamestown, and to the obtaining of provisions 
wherewith to stock it. He made a foray into an Indian settle- 
ment, and by a judicious use of his firearms, induced a party 
of savages to load his boat with corn, venison and wild fowl, and 
to accept beads and hatchets in return. He repeated his excur- 
sions from time to time, though dissensions invariably broke out 
among his people during his absence. Before the approach 
of winter, he had gained such an ascendency over the Indians, 
that on invading their territory he was certain to find them 
awaiting his coming, with baskets laden with corn, beans and 
pumpkins. The bays and rivers were covered with ducks and 
geese, and the tables of the adventurers were thus bountifully 
spread. 

In one of his attempts to penetrate to the source of the 
Chickahominy River, being very insufficiently attended, Smith's 
party was attacked by three hundred savages led by Opechan- 
canough, Powhatan's brother. Though wounded in the thigh, 
he bound one of his Indian guides to his left arm, using him as a 
buckler, and at the same time plied his musket so effectively 
that he killed three of his assailants and wounded several others. 



POCAHONTAS. 345 

While attempting to reach his canoe, he sank, with his buckler 
on his arm, up to his waist in a bog. The savages dared not 
approach him, till, benumbed with cold, he threw away his arms 
and shield in token of surrender. They extricated him from 
the morass, carried him to their bivouac, and attempted to 
restore the circulation of his frozen blood by vigorous friction. 

Smith, without condescending to beg for his life, requested 
to speak with the chief. Upon being presented to Opechan- 
canough, he drew from his pocket a portable ivory compass, 
which he used to guide his course through the woods. He called 
the chief's attention to the restless play of the needle, at the same 
time attempting an explanation of the wonderful purpose it was 
made to serve. In his own account of the interview, he states 
that he went on to expound the mysteries of astronomy, the 
alternations of the seasons and the revolution of the earth, "and 
how the sunne did chase the night about the world continually ;" 
but those who are aware how difficult it is to comprehend 
these abstruse matters, and to obtain an adequate conception of 
the Copernican system, even with the aid of diagrams and an 
orrery, will probably conclude that Smith entirely overrated his 
skill in pantomime. But, at any rate, the interesting little dial, 
which was doubtless taken for a god or a medicine, saved him 
from the immediate death to which he was doomed, and he was 
taken in procession to the village of Orapax. Here the warriors 
performed a hideous war dance around him, to the delight of the 
assembled squaws and pappooses. He was then plied so bounti- 
fully with excellent fare, that he imagined he was to be fattened 
for the table — a calumnious supposition, by the way, as the 
Indians of Forth America have always been free from the di&- 
gusting practice of cannibalism. 

Some time after this, Smith was taken to Werowocomoco, 
the residence of Powhatan, the great chief. He was detained 
for a time, that the emperor might receive him with becom- 
ing ceremony. He was at last introduced into a wigwam ot 



346 POCAHONTAS. 

unusual size, in the centre of which was a blazing fire. At 
one end, upon a rude throne, sat Powhatan, a man of noble 
stature, and of majestic, though severe demeanor. He was 
dressed in raccoon skins, " the tayles all hanging by." On 
one side of him was his daughter Matachanna; on the other 
his younger and favorite daughter, Matoaka, the "Snow- 
feather," destined in the coming hour to render herself im- 
mortal, under the beautiful but assumed name of Pocahontas. 
Against each wall of the wigwam sat a row of women, their 
faces and shoulders painted red, their hair adorned with the 
white down of birds, and their necks ornamented with beads. 

The queen of Apamatuck brought the guest water with 
which to wash his hands, and another lady of rank a bunch 
of feathers with which to dry them. A consultation was then 
held, at the end of which two large stones were laid before 
Powhatan. Smith was dragged to the altar thus improvised, 
and his head placed upon the stones. Some half dozen sav- 
ages raised their clubs in the air, waiting for Powhatan's sig- 
nal to beat out the helpless victim's brains. Matoaka for a 
moment stayed her father's purpose by her tears and entrea- 
ties ; but finding all intercession unavailing, she sprang forward, 
kneeled over Smith's prostrate form, clasped his head in her 
arms, and placing her own upon it, seemed determined to share 
his fate. This heroic and generous act touched the hearts 
of Powhatan and the executioners ; the chief yielded to the 
solicitations of his daughter, and set the sentence of death 
aside, resolving to employ Smith as an artisan, to make hatchets, 
bows and arrows for himself, and bells and beads for Matoaka. 

"The account of this most beautiful and touching scene," 
says Mr. Hillard, " familiar as it is to every one, can hardly be 
read with unmoistened eyes. The incident is so dramatic and 
startling, that it seems to preserve the freshness of novelty 
amidst a thousand repetitions. We could almost as reasonably 
have expected an angel to have come down from heaven and 



POCAHONTAS. 347 

rescued the captive, as that his deliverer should have sprung 
from the bosom of Powhatan's family. The universal sympa- 
thies of mankind, and the best feelings of the human heart, 
have redeemed this scene from the obscurity which, in the pro- 
gress of time, gathers over all but the most important events. 
It has pointed a thousand morals and adorned a thousand tales. 
Innumerable bosoms have throbbed, and are yet to throb, with 
generous admiration for this daughter of a people whom we 
have been too ready to underrate. Had we known nothing 
of her but what is related in this incident, she would deserve 
the eternal gratitude of the inhabitants of this country, for 
the fate of the colony may be said to have hung upon the arms 
of Smith's executioners. He was its life and soul, and with- 
out the magic influence of his personal qualities, it would have 
abandoned in despair the project of permanently settling the 
country, and sailed to England by the first opportunity." 

Matoaka was at this period twelve years old, having been 
born in 1595. Of her life up to the period of which we are 
speaking, nothing whatever is known, and history has preserved 
no record of the influences which conspired to form a cha- 
racter which would have been beautiful anywhere, and was a 
marvel in one reared in a Virginia forest, amid lawless and 
untutored savages. It is certain, however, that upon the set- 
tlement of the English colonists in their vicinity, Powhatan 
changed her name to that of Pocahontas — signifying "a run 
between two hills." He appears to have believed that by 
thus concealing her true name, he should deprive the English 
of the power of harming her, should she, by any mischance, 
fall into their hands. 

Smith was detained two days, and then dismissed with 
compliments and promises of friendship. Powhatan often 
sent Pocahontas to Jamestown with provisions, of which the 
colonists stood in great need. Mr. William Strachey, the 
first secretary of the colony, makes the following incidental 



348 POCAHONTAS. 

mention of these visits of Pocahontas, in his " Historie of Tra- 
vaile into Yirginia Britannia:" "The better sort of womeu 
cover themselves for the most part all over with skin man- 
tells finely drest, shagged and fringed at the skirt. Their 
younger women goe not shadowed amongst their own com- 
panie until they be nigh eleaven or twelve returns of the 
leafe old — for so they accompt and bring about the ye are — 
nor are they much ashamed thereof, and therefore would the 
before remembered Pochahuntas, a well-featured but wanton 
young girl, Powhatan's daughter, sometyme resorting to our 
fort, get the boyes forth with her into the markett place, and 
make them wheele, falling on their hands, turning up their 
heeles upwards, whom she would followe and wheele so her- 
self, naked as she was, all the fort over ; but being once twelve 
yeares, they put on a kind of semecinctum lethern apron, as 
doe our artificers or handycrafts men." 

Smith returned the same winter to Werowocomoco, bring- 
ing with him one Captain Newport, who had just arrived from 
England, and was anxious to behold the emperor. Powhatan 
exerted himself to entertain them sumptuously. He received 
them reclining upon his couch of mats, and dressed as before in 
the fur of the raccoon, his pillow of skins lying beside him, 
brilliantly embroidered with shells and beads. Speeches and 
feasts, with dancing and singing, followed ; and finally, New- 
port and Powhatan made up their minds to trade. Newport 
was inclined to higgle, but was reproved by Powhatan. "Cap- 
tain Newport," said he, "it is not agreeable to my greatness 
to truck in this peddling manner for trifles. I am a great 
sachem, and I esteem you the same. Therefore lay me down 
all your commodities together ; what I like I will take, and 
in return you shall have what I conceive to be a fair value." 
Upon this request being acceded to, Powhatan coolly made an 
adroit selection, giving three bushels of corn in exchange. New- 
port had calculated upon twenty hogsheads at least. 



POCAHONTAS. 349 

Smith, vexed at Newport's imprudent operation, by which 
he had greatly lowered the value of many articles of barter, 
saw that it was indispensable to do away with its ill effects by 
a counter operation. He drew forth a quantity of toys and 
gewgaws, glancing them dexterously in the light. Powhatan 
eyed with admiring gaze a string of blue glass beads. Smith 
put the beads away. Powhatan offered to buy them. Smith 
said they were not for sale. Powhatan insisted. Smith replied 
that they were of the color of the sky, and only to be worn 
by great sachems. Powhatan observed that he was a great 
sachem. He soon became quite beside himself to possess the 
beads, and finally purchased them for three hundred bushels 
of corn. Smith, not ashamed of having overreached the father 
of Pocahontas in this unseemly manner, subsequently outwit- 
ted her uncle, Opechancanough, in precisely the same way. Blue 
beads soon became imperial symbols of enormous value, and 
none but sachems and members of their families dared to be 
seen wearing them. 

Powhatan's fancy was next attracted by the swords of the 
colonists, which he had had occasion to admire as more effi- 
cient than the native hatchets and tomahawk-s. Remembering 
Newport's indefinite notions of barter and sale, he sent him 
twenty turkeys, with a request for twenty swords in return, 
with which that inconsiderate gentleman furnished him unhe- 
sitatingly. He subsequently attempted to wheedle Smith in 
the same way, but the shrewd pioneer kept the turkeys and 
the swords both. Powhatan, therefore, ordered his people to 
possess themselves of the weapons of the English whenever 
an opportunity offered,, either by stratagem or force. They 
commenced their depredations and continued them till surprised 
by Smith, and then confessed that Powhatan was endeavoring 
to obtain their arms that he might afterwards exterminate 
them. When the sachem learned that his plot was discovered, 
he sent the gentle Pocahontas to Smith, with directions to 



350 POCAHONTAS. 

excuse him, and to lay the entire blame upon his disorderly 
and ungovernable warriors. Smith released his prisoners, after a 
sufficient chastisement, sending word to Powhatan, that if he 
treated them with unmilitary clemency, it was wholly due to 
the intercession of Pocahontas. 

Smith was now elected governor of Virginia. Newport, 
who had in the meantime sailed home to England, returned, 
bringing numerous costly presents for Powhatan — the effect of 
which would be, Smith feared, to cause the emperor to over- 
rate the importance of his own favor. One of the presents 
was a royal crown, the gift of King James I., who doubtless 
hoped to seduce Powhatan into submission to his dominion, 
or at least to assimilate the royal authority of his sylvan 
ally to his own, by the solemn ceremony of a coronation. 
Smith set out to invite Powhatan to Jamestown, for the pur- 
pose of receiving the presents. On his arrival at Werowo- 
comoco he found Powhatan absent. Pocahontas sent for him 
immediately, and in the meantime entertained her visitors with 
an extraordinary pageant, which, in the original narrative, is 
called an " anticke." 

A fire was made in an open field, and Smith was placed upon 
a mat before it, with his men about him. Hideous shouts were 
then heard in the woods, and the Englishmen, fearing a surprise, 
seized their arms. "Then presently," says the chronicle, "they 
were presented with this anticke. Thirtie young women came 
naked out of the woods, only covered behind and before with a 
few greene leaves ; their bodies all paynted, some of one colour 
and some of another, but all differing. Their leader had a fayre 
payre of bucke's horns on her head, and an otter's skinne at her 
girdle, another at her arme, a quiver of arrowes at her backe, a 
bow and arrowes in her hand. The next had in her hand a 
sworde, another a clubbe, another a pot-sticke, all horned alike ; 
the rest every one with their severall devices. These fiends, with 
most hellish shouts and cryes, rushing from among the trees, 



POCAHONTAS. 851 

caste themselves in a ring about the fire, singing and dauncing 
with the most excellent ill varietie, oft falling into their infernall 
passions, and then again to sing and daunce. Having spent near 
an hour in this mascarado, as they entered, in like manner they 
departed. 

" Having reaccommodated themselves, they solemnly invited 
Smith to their lodgings, when he was no sooner within the house 
but all these nymphs more tormented him than ever, with crowd- 
ing, pressing and hanging about him, most tediously crying, 
' Love you not me V This salutation ended, the feast was set, 
consisting of all the salvage dainties they could devise ; some 
attending, others dauncing about them. This mirth being ended, 
with firebrands instead of torches, they conducted him to his 
lodging. 

" Thus did they show their feats of armes, and others art in dauncing ; 
Some others us'd their oaten pipe, and others voyces chaunting." 

The next mention of Pocahontas in the Virginia chronicles is 
in the character of the guardian angel of the settlers. Powhatan 
had resolved to fall upon the English, and had made such formid- 
able preparations as would have secured him an easy triumph, 
had not his intentions been divulged by his daughter. " For 
Pocahontas, his dearest Jewell, in that dark night came through 
the irksome woods and told our Captain great cheer should be 
sent us by and by ; but Powhatan and all the power he could 
make, would after come kill us all, if they that brought it could 
not kill us with our own weapons when we were at supper. 
Therefore, if we would live, she wished us presently to be gone 
Such things as she delighted in the Captain would have given 
her ; but, with the tears running down her cheeks, she said she 
durst aot be seen to have any ; for if Powhatan should know it, 
she were but dead, and so she ran away by herself as she came." 
Thus placed upon his guard by his amiable and disinterested 



352 POCAHONTAS. 

preserver, Smith baffled the artful design of Powhatan, and with 
his men departed at high water. 

In the autumn of 1609, an accident which happened to Cap- 
tain Smith forever severed his connection with the Virginia 
colonists. While sleeping in the boat in which he was returning 
down the river to Jamestown, a bag of gunpowder exploded, 
mangling and burning his flesh in the most shocking manner. 
He sprang overboard to allay the pain and extinguish the flames, 
and was with difficulty rescued. The wounds soon grew danger- 
ous, and Smith, tormented by bodily anguish, and weary of the 
mental anxieties in which his position involved him, departed 
from Virginia never again to return. He left behind him four 
hundred and ninety colonists, three ships, with seven boats and 
twenty-four cannon, an ample stock of provisions, tools, clothing, 
ammunition and domestic animals. 

Notwithstanding this abundant supply of the necessaries of 
life, the colonists were by waste and bad management soon 
brought to want. Six months after Smith's departure the colony 
was reduced to sixty persons, who subsisted miserably, first upon 
roots, herbs and berries, and finally upon the skins of horses, 
and even upon starch. One starving wretch actually disinterred 
and devoured the body of an Indian who had been slain and 
buried. Another killed his wife, "powdered her," or, in other 
words, salted her, and thus for a time prolonged his life. But 
for this deed of despair the murderous cannibal was afterwards 
hanged. During this season of horror, Captain Ratcliffe headed 
a party of thirty men who set out to trade with Powhatan, in- 
veigled by his specious arts. They were all slain but one, a boy 
named Henry Spilman, who owed his life to the intervention of 
Pocahontas, and who remained for many years among the Poto- 
wamack Indians, or Potomacs. 

The Indian princess would appear at this period to have for- 
saken her father, and to have placed herself under the protection 
of Japazaws, the chief of the Potomacs. The historians of the 



POCAHONTAS. 353 

Virginia colony attribute this abandonment of her home to 
her unwillingness to remain a witness of her father's constant 
massacres of the English. It is believed, too, that she had 
incurred Powhatan's displeasure by her frequent interference 
in behalf of the invaders. In the year 1812, Capt. Argall, who 
had arrived at Jamestown with two ships laden with provisions — 
which, however, proved insufficient — went up the Potomac to 
procure corn from the natives. He formed an acquaintance with 
Japazaws, who had previously been a friend of Smith's, and was 
still an ally of the English. The chief incidentally mentioned 
to Argall that Pocahontas was living upon his territories, her 
asylum being known to a few trusty friends only. Argall 
immediately resolved to obtain possession of her person, as a 
means of forcing Powhatan to a peace with the colony. He 
secured the cooperation of Japazaws by promising him in recom- 
pense a bright copper kettle — a bribe which had always proved 
irresistible to the Indians — the sachem, however, exacting a 
pledge that Pocahontas should not be harmed while in English 
custody. Japazaws in turn induced his wife to join in the scheme, 
which was executed in the following adroit and characteristic 
manner : 

Japazaws' wife, acting under instructions, affected an ex- 
treme curiosity respecting Argall's ships, and expressed a desire 
to go on board. Japazaws, however, had often visited the vessels 
of the colonists, and did not care to go again ; he would not take 
his wife, nor allow her to go alone. She became importunate 
and he became impatient ; finally her persistence grew so 
intolerable, that he positively beat her. Upon this, we are told, 
" she actually accomplished a few tears !" All this occurred 
in the presence of Pocahontas, and such scenes were frequently 
enacted for her benefit. At last Japazaws appeared to yield 
to the evident affliction of his wife, and said that however 
irksome a visit to the vessel might be to himself — familiar as he 
was with the English marine — he was nevertheless willing to 



354 POCAHONTAS. 

gratify her innocent curiosity, and if her friend Pocahontas would 
consent to accompany her, he would be happy to escort them 
both. 

The amiable princess, who was far from suspecting treachery, 
and who was unable to endure the apparent distress of her 
friend, readily consented. They were cordially welcomed on 
board the vessel, and hospitably entertained in the cabin. Japa- 
zaws trod stealthily upon Argyll's foot, to intimate that his part 
of the bargain was accomplished. The guests were then paraded 
about the ship, Japazaws taking every opportunity to repeat his 
indecorous summons to the captain for the delivery of the kettle. 
At last he received "the brilliant wages of his sin." Argall 
decoyed Pocahontas to the gun-room, and there told her that she 
was a prisoner, and must remain with him as a hostage till a 
peace could be arranged between himself and her father. She 
wept bitterly at first, but was doubtless consoled in her grief 
by the intolerable affliction manifested by the two Japazaws. 
They absolutely howled when they learned that the innocent 
maiden whom they had induced to confide in their protection, 
was to be thus treacherously treated. They ceased their lamen- 
tations upon a signal from Argall, that they were altogether 
overdoing the matter; and, with their kettle filled to the brim 
with toys and glass jewelry, trudged merrily home to their 
wigwam. 

Pocahontas dried her eyes upon the reflection that the 
English, to whom she had rendered such signal services, could 
not treat her with inhumanity. The vessel sailed down the river 
to Jamestown, which the princess had not seen since Smith's 
departure. On their arrival a message was dispatched to Pow- 
hatan, to the effect " that his daughter Pocahontas he loved so 
dearly, he must ransom with the English men, swords, pieces, 
tooles, hee treacherously had stolen." Though the venerable 
sachem is said to have been much troubled at his daughter's 
captivity, he was still so deeply offended at the undiplomatic 



POCAHONTAS. 355 

language in which the demand was couched, that he sent no 
answer for the space of three months. At the end of that time, 
he liberated seven Englishmen, with as many rusty, disabled fire- 
locks, one axe, one saw, and one canoe laden with corn. He 
further offered to make peace and give a bonus of five hundred 
baskets of corn, if his daughter were restored. He could return 
no more muskets, however, as they were all mislaid ; and he 
could not compel the whites who remained with him to return, 
free volunteers as they were in his service. The colonists were 
not deceived by this transparent ruse, and sent back word that 
they would release Pocahontas when all the arms and captives 
were restored, and not before. The stern warrior gave himself 
no further uneasiness about his daughter, tranquilly abandoning 
her to her fate, and retaining his prisoners and the muskets. 
Thus nearly a year passed away. The time need not be sup- 
posed to have hung heavily upon the captive princess' hands, for 
subsequent developments show her to have been engaged in the 
"very pleasant and diverting pastime of love-making with a 
worthy young Englishman, John Rolfe by name." 

In the spring of 1613, a party of one hundred and sixty 
colonists, well armed, and commanded by Sir Thomas Dale, the 
President of the colony, sailed up the river Werowocomoco, 
taking Pocahontas with them. Young Mr. Rolfe also accom- 
panied the expedition. The Powhatans received them with 
scorn and defiance, threatening them with the fate of Captain 
RatclifFe. The English landed and burned and destroyed their 
wigwams. A truce was agreed upon, during which two of 
the brothers of Pocahontas visited her on board the ship. 
They found her well, and, moreover, contented and happy. 
They promised to do everything in their power to effect her 
release, which, however, she did not seem particularly to desire. 
Mr. Rolfe and Mr. Sparkes were soon after sent upon an em- 
bassy to Powhatan, who refused to see them, turning them 
over to his brother, Opechancanough. The whole party now 



356 POCAHONTAS. 

returned to Jamestown, without having ransomed a man or 
redeemed a musket. 

Mr. Rolfe now informed Sir Thomas Dale of his attach- 
ment to Pocahontas, and requested his consent to their mar- 
riage. It was cheerfully given, as such a connection could 
not fail to prove an auspicious event in the annals of the 
colony. Pocahontas communicated her intentions to one of 
her brothers, who promised to convey the intelligence to Pow- 
hatan. The old chief was highly pleased with the idea, and 
within ten days forwarded his consent and his blessing to his 
daughter. Unable to attend the ceremony himself, he commis- 
sioned his brother Opachisco and two of his sons, " to wit- 
ness the manner of the marriage, and to do in that behalf 
what they were requested for the confirmation thereof as his 
deputies/' Pocahontas had already become a convert to the 
Christian religion, and by the mysterious rite of baptism, had 
exchanged her Indian appellation for the biblical name of Re- 
becca. She was often called "the first fruit of the Gospel in 
America," and Sir Thomas Dale once wrote of her, " were it 
but the gaining of this one soule, I will think my time, toil, 
and present stay, well spent." 

The following account of the nuptial ceremonies we ex- 
tract from Lossing's " Marriage of Pocahontas :" " It was a day 
in charming April, in 1613, when Rolfe and Pocahontas stood 
at the marriage altar in the new and pretty chapel at James- 
town. The sun had marched half way up toward the meridian, 
when a goodly company had assembled beneath the temple 
roof. The pleasant odor of the "pews of cedar" commingled 
with the fragrance of the wild flowers which decked the fes- 
toons of evergreens and sprays that hung over the 'fair, 
broad windows/ and the commandment tablets above the chan- 
cel. Over the pulpit of black-walnut hung garlands of white 
flowers, with the waxen leaves and scarlet berries of the holly. 
The communion table was covered with fair white linen, and 



POCAHONTAS. 357 

bore bread from the wheat fields of Jamestown, and wine 
from its luscious grapes. The font, ' hewn hollow between, 
like a canoe,' sparkled with water, as on the morning when 
the gentle princess uttered her baptismal vows. 

" Of all that company assembled in the broad space be- 
tween the chancel and the pews, the bride and groom were 
the central figures in fact and significance. Pocahontas was 
dressed in a simple tunic of white muslin, from the looms 
of Dacca. Her arms were bare even to the shoulders ; and. 
hanging loosely towards her feet, was a robe of rich stuff, 
presented by Sir Thomas Dale, and fancifully embroidered by 
herself and her maidens. A gaudy fillet encircled her head, and 
held the plumage of birds and a veil of gauze, while her 
limbs were adorned with the simple jewelry of the native work- 
shops. Rolfe was attired in the gay clothing of an English 
cavalier of that period, and upon his thigh he wore the short 
sword of a gentleman of distinction in society. He was the 
personification of manly beauty in form and carriage ; she of 
womanly modesty and lovely simplicity ; and as they came and 
stood before the man of God, history dipped her pen in the 
indestructible fountain of truth, and recorded a prophecy of 
mighty empires in the New World. Upon the chancel steps, 
where no railing interfered, the good Whitaker stood in his 
sacerdotal robes, and, with impressive voice, pronounced the 
marriage ritual of the liturgy of the Anglican Church, then firsc 
planted on the Western Continent. On his right, in a richly 
carved chair of state, brought from England, sat the Governor, 
with his ever-attendant halberdiers, with brazen helmets, at 
his back. 

" All then at Jamestown were at the marriage. The let- 
ters of the time have transmitted to us the names of some of 
them. Mistress John Rolfe, with her child — doubtless of the 
family of the bridegroom — Mistress Easton and child, and Mis- 
tress Horton and grandchild, with her maid servant, Elizabeth 



358 POCAHONTAS. 

Parsons, who, on a Christmas Eve before, had married Thomas 
Powell, were yet in Virginia. Among the noted men then 
present was Sir Thomas Gates, a brave soldier in many wars, 
and as brave an adventurer among the Atlantic perils as 
any who ever trusted to the ribs of oak of the ships of Old 
England. And Master Sparkes, who had been co-ambassador 
with Rolfe to the court of Powhatan, stood near the old sol- 
dier, with young Henry Spilman at his side. There, too, was the 
young George Percy, brother of the powerful Duke of North- 
umberland, whose conduct was always as noble as his blood ; 
and near him, an earnest spectator of the scene, was the elder 
brother of Pocahontas, but not the destined successor to the 
throne of his father. There, too, was a younger brother of the 
bride, and many youths and maidens from the forest shades : 
but one noble figure — the pride of the Powhatan confederacy 
— the father of the bride, was absent. He had consented to 
the marriage with willing voice, but would not trust himself 
within the power of the English, at Jamestown. He remained 
in his habitation at Werowocomoco, while the Rose and the 
Totum were being wedded, but cheerfully commissioned his 
brother, Opachisco, to give away his daughter. That prince 
performed his duty well, and then, in careless gravity, he sat 
and listened to the voice of the Apostle, and the sweet chant- 
ing of the little choristers. The music ceased, the benediction 
fell, the solemn "Amen" echoed from the rude vaulted roof, 
and the joyous company left the chapel for the festive hall 
of the governor. Thus "the peace" was made stronger, and 
the Rose of England lay undisturbed upon the Hatchet of 
the Powhatans, while the father of Pocahontas lived." 

Pocahontas dwelt at Jamestown with her husband, readily 
conforming to English usages, and acquiring the language with 
facility. She never expressed, and doubtless never felt, a re- 
gret at having abandoned her people. Indeed the union was in 
every point of view so auspicious, that Sir Thomas Dale sent a 



POCAHONTAS. 359 

proposal to Powhatan for the hand of another of his daughters, 
urging the expediency of further uniting the two races, and 
adding that Pocahontas would be delighted to see her sister 
at Jamestown. Powhatan replied that he desired no other 
assurance of the president's friendship than his word, which was 
already pledged ; that he thought he had himself given an equal 
assurance in the person of Pocahontas ; that one daughter was, 
in his opinion, sufficient at one time ; when she died, he would 
substitute another in her stead. But there was another reason 
why he must decline the offer of Sir Thomas ; he had sold his 
daughter, hardly a week before, to a great werowance living in 
the neighborhood, for the price of three bushels of roanoke. 

Three years after her marriage, Pocahontas, with her infant 
son, Thomas Eolfe, accompanied her husband and Sir Thomas 
Dale to England, where they arrived on the 16th of June, 1616. 
King James was offended with Polfe for his presumption in 
marrying the daughter of a king — a piece of affectation for which 
his majesty has been styled by a Yirginia historian, "an anointed 
pedant." Captain Smith, whose health had been restored, was 
at this time in London, preparing for a voyage to New England ; 
he, however, delayed his departure for the purpose of employing 
his influence to Pocahontas' advantage. He drew up a memorial 
to "the most high and virtuous princess, Queen Anne," from 
which, as from an authentic and contemporaneous document 
of great interest, we make the following extracts : 

" Some ten years ago, being in Yirginia, and taken prisoner 
by the power of Powhatan, their chief king, I received from this 
great salvage exceeding great courtesy, especially from his son, 
Nantaquaus, the most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit I ever 
saw in a salvage, and his sister, Pocahontas, the king's most dear 
and well beloved daughter, being but a child of twelve or thirteen 
years of age, whose compassionate, pitiful heart of my desperate 
estate, gave me much cause to respect her. After some weeks 
fatting amongst these salvage courtiers, at the minute of my 

2? 



360 



POCAHONTAS. 



execution, she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to 
save mine, and not only that, but so prevailed with her father 
that I was safely conducted to James Town. 

" Such was the weakness of this poor commonwealth, as, had 
the savages not fed us, we directly had starved. And this 
relief, most gracious queen, was commonly brought us by this 
Lady Pocahontas ; notwithstanding all those passages when 
inconstant Fortune turned our peace to war, this tender virgin 
still would not spare to come to visit us, and by her our jars 
have been oft appeased, and our wants still supplied. Were it 
the policy of her father thus to employ her, or the ordinance of 
God thus to make her his instrument, or her extraordinary affec- 
tion to our nation, I know not ; but of this I am sure, when her 
father, with the utmost of his policy and power, sought to sur- 
prise me, having but eighteen with me, the dark night could not 
affright her from coming through the irksome woods, and with 
watered eyes, give me intelligence, with her best advice, to 
escape his fury ; which, had he known, he had surely slain her. 
James Town, with her wild train, she as freely frequented as her 
father's habitation ; and during the time of two or three years, 
she next, under God, was still the instrument to preserve this 
colony from death, famine and utter confusion, which, if these 
times had once been dissolved, Yirginia might have lain as it was 
on our arrival to this day. 

11 Since then, this business having been turned and carried by 
many accidents from that I left it at, it is most certain after a 
long and troublesome war, after my departure, betwixt her 
father and our colony, all which time she was not heard of, about 
two years after she herself was taken prisoner, being so detained 
near two years longer ; the colony was by that means relieved, 
peace concluded, and at last, rejecting her barbarous condition, 
was married to an English gentleman, with whom at this present 
the as in England ; the first Christian ever of that nation, the 
first. Virginian ever spoke English, or had a child in marriage by 



POCAHONTAS. 361 

an Englishman, a matter surely, if my meaning be truly con- 
sidered and well understood, worthy a Princess' understanding." 

Thus recommended, Pocahontas gained the friendship and 
esteem of the king and queen, and her acquaintance was eagerly 
sought by persons of the highest rank, many of whom declared 
'* they had seen English ladies worse favoured, proportioned and 
behavioured." She was known as the Lady Kebecca. Her por- 
trait was taken at this period, and represented her in the fashion- 
able English costume of the day. The following inscription was 
appended to it : Matoaka, als Rebecca, Filia Potentiss : Princ : 
Powhatani Imp : Virginia. Matoaka, als Rebecca, Daughter 
to the Mighty Prince Powhatan, Emperour of Attanough- 
komouck, als virginia, converted and baptized in the chris- 
TIAN Faith, and Wife to the Worshipful Mr. John Rolfe. 
iBTATIS SUiE 21 a.d. 1616. 

Before his departure, Smith visited her at Brentford, whither 
she had retired with her husband, to escape the smoke and din 
of the city. She had been told, though with what design we are 
not informed, that he was long since dead, and when he was 
suddenly introduced into her presence, she was so overwhelmed 
with joy at his restoration, and with resentment at the imposi- 
tion, that she turned away and buried her face in her hands. 
She remained silent for three hours, being left to herself to 
recover her equanimity. Smith was somewhat annoyed at this 
result of her emotion, "repenting himself to have writ that she 
could speak English." She finally yielded to entreaty and con- 
versed freely with Smith and other guests. She thus addressed 
the captain : " You promised my father that whatever was yours 
should be his, and that you and he would be all one. Being a 
stranger in our country, you called Powhatan father ; and I for 
the same reason will now call you so." But Smith represented to 
her how jealous the king and court were of any undue assump- 
tion of royal or noble state in those who were of plebeian descent, 
and urged, in combating her proposition, that if his majesty had 



362 POCAHONiaS. 

been offended with her husband for having married one of roy V 
birth, how much more so would he be likely to be if a lady of 
royal birth were to bestow the title of father upon an adventurer 
like himself. But Pocahontas could not understand his reasoning, 
and continued in a loftier tone : " You were not afraid to come 
into my father's country, and cause fear in him and all his people 
but me, and are you here afraid to let me call you father ? I tell 
you then I will call you father and you shall call me child ; 
and so I will forever be of your kindred and country." 

History has preserved no further details of the career of the 
"Numpareil of Virginia," as Smith was wont to call her, until we 
arrive at the period of her death, early in the year 1617. This 
neglect and indifference are quite inexplicable, especially on the 
part of an author like Hume, who never once mentions her name. 
Pocahontas and her husband were at Gravesend, preparing to 
return to Virginia, the treasurer and council of the colony having 
provided them proper accommodations on board the ship George, 
commanded by Captain Argall. That Mr. Rolfe 's position might 
be in some degree assimilated to the rank and quality of his 
wife, he was made secretary and recorder-general of Virginia. 
But before embarking, Pocahontas fell sick, and after a brief 
illness died, in her twenty-second year. Her death, we are told, 
was a happy mixture of Indian fortitude and Christian submis- 
sion ; she affected all those who saw her by the lively and 
edifying display of piety and virtue which marked the closing 
moments of her life. 

Late researches have disclosed the place of Pocahontas' 
burial. The original entry in the register of the parish of 
Gravesend, inaccurate, however ; In two particulars, was dis- 
covered but a few years ago by the rector. It runs thus: 
"1616: March 21. Rebecca Rolfe, wyffe of Thomas Rolfe, gent, 
a Virginia lady borne, was buried in ye chauncell." But as the 
present church at Gravesend was erected subsequent to the year 
1616, the grave of Pocahontas can no longer be pointed out, 



POCAHONTAS. 363 

though the position of the chancel of the former edifice may be 
indicated with a sufficient degree of accuracy to reward the pil- 
grim whom a pious regard for her memory may attract to her 
resting-place in Kent. 

The character of Pocahontas is one upon which the historian 
and biographer may well delight to dwell. In all those qualities 
which mankind have agreed to regard as the peculiar and most 
winning attributes of woman — humanity, tenderness, modesty, 
sensibility, constancy, disinterestedness — she may safely be af- 
firmed to be without a rival. But not alone in the essential 
virtues of her sex was she worthy of admiration ; her foresight, 
when the interests of her friends required it, and her intrepidity, 
when danger threatened them, give a strong relief to the other- 
wise too mellow coloring of the picture. Had Pocahontas been 
carefully nurtured under a mother's jealous eye, surrounded by 
the appliances of civilization and the influences of Christianity, 
her character would still have been one of the loveliest in 
history ; but, when it is remembered that she was the untutored 
offspring of a barbarian monarch, that her virtues were intuitive, 
not called forth by culture, and that she was trained and bred 
amid lawlessness and violence, we are compelled to regard her 
as an exceptional being, created for a special purpose, and 
furnished with the moral superiority requisite to enable her to 
effect it. She was an essential link in the chain of circumstances 
which was to lead to the colonization of Yirginia and the estab- 
lishment of the white race in America. Had not Pocahontas 
preserved the life of Smith, and, with his life, saved the James- 
town settlement from ruin, in 1607, we may be very sure that 
the Pilgrim Fathers would not have embarked in the Mayflower 
in 1620. 

" Pocahontas," to employ once more the language of Mr. 
Hillard, " has been a powerful, though silent advocate of the 
race to which she belonged. Her deeds have covered a mul- 
titude of their sins. When disgusted with numerous recitals 



364 POCAHONTAS. 

of their cruelty and treachery, and about to pass an unfavor* 
able judgment in our minds upon the Indian character, at 
the thought of Pocahontas our rigor relents. With a softened 
heart, we are ready to admit that there must have been fine 
elements in a people from among whom such a being could 
spring." We may add, that the union of so many qualities 
honorable to the female sex and to the human race, should 
never be forgotten when forming an estimate of the character 
of the American aborigines. 

The infant son of Pocahontas, Thomas Rolfe, bereft of a 
mother's care, was left at Plymouth, his father judging it in- 
expedient to remove him to Virginia. His early education 
was directed by Sir Lewis Stukely, but as that gentleman was 
soon after beggared and disgraced by the treacherous part he 
took in the proceedings against Sir Walter Raleigh, young 
Rolfe was transferred to the care of his uncle, Henry Rolfe, 
of London. He afterwards settled in Yirginia, where he had 
inherited a large tract of land which had belonged to Pow- 
hatan, and where he attained to fortune and eminence. His 
descendants, at the present day, are numerous, wealthy, and 
influential. The extreme intricacy of the various branches and 
connections of the family, renders it impossible to present a com- 
plete genealogical table. We may give, however, the following 
brief and distinct steps by which one of the remarkable men of 
America was wont to trace back his descent, through six gene- 
rations, to the peerless daughter of Powhatan : 



1. | POOAHOOTAS, JOHN ROLFE. 



Thomas Rolf^, their only son, 
married in Virginia. 



POCAHONTAS. 



3G5 



8. 



Jane Rolfe, his only daughter, 
married to Robert Boiling. 



John Bolling, their only son, 
married in Virginia. 



Jane Bolling, one of six children, 
married to Colonel Richard Ran- 
dolph, son of Col. ¥m. Randolph, 
of Yorkshire. 



6. 



I 

John Randolph, their son, mar- 
ried Frances Bland. 



7. 



JOHN RANDOLPH of Roanoke, 
one of fonr sons. 



Jane Bolling is thus spoken of by Hugh Garland in his 
biography of John Randolph, her grandson : " The portrait of 
Mrs. Randolph — Jane Bolling — is still extant. A more marked 
and commanding countenance is rarely to be met with. If 
the portrait be true to nature, none of the Indian complexion 
can be traced in her countenance. Her erect and firm position, 
and square, broad shoulders, are the only indications of Indian 
descent. The face is decidedly handsome, while the lofty, ex- 
panded, and well-marked forehead, the great breadth between 
the eyes, the firm, distended nostril, compressed lip and steady 
eye, display an intellect, a firmness, and moral qualities truly 
heroic and commanding. Worthy descendant of the daughter 
of Powhatan !" 

One of the historians of Virginia, Mr. John Burk, thus writes 
of the descendants of Pocahontas in 1804: " The virtues of mild- 
uess and humanity, so eminently distinguished in Pocahontas, 
remain in the nature of an inheritance to her posterity. None 



366 P C A H X T A S . 

of them have been conspicuous in arts or arms ; no great states- 
man or consummate general has issued from the loins of Pow- 
hatan since his imperial blood has mingled with the whites. But 
then, there is scarcely a single scion from the stock which has 
not been in the highest degree amiable and respectable, and for 
the want of the more imposing and showy qualifications, we must 
principally look to the affluent circumstances of the family, which 
generally take away the motive to exertion and enterprise. The 
author of this history is acquainted with several members of this 
family, who are intelligent, and even eloquent, and who, if 
fortune do but keep pace with their merits, should not despair 
of attaining a conspicuous and even exalted station in the com- 
monwealth." 

The same language might be applied with equal propriety to 
the posterity of the ~L&dy Rebecca at the present day. Her 
descendants continue eminently distinguished for the qualities 
which adorn social life, and remain faithful to the maxim which 
they seem to have adopted, that the post of honor is a private 
station. There are probably few pedigrees in the country which 
give such unfeigned gratification to those whose lineage they 
record, as that which connects the family of which wo have 
spoken with the King of the Powhatans and the Nonpareil o 
Virginia. 



NELL GWYJO 



It has been the custom with the biographers of Nell Gwynn 
to introduce their narrative with an apology and an explanation. 
Mrs. Jameson, though well aware that the portrait and accom- 
panying sketch of Nelly would be the most agreeable feature of 
her "Beauties of the Court of Charles II.," thought proper to 
offer three pages of excuses for her temerity ; and Mr. Peter 
Cunningham, who, six years ago, was the first to do the poor 
orange girl justice, took a similar precaution before presenting 
his manuscript to Sylvanus Urban, gent. We shelter ourselves 
behind these authorities, and, in the following quotations, make 
their apologies our own. Thus writes Mrs. Jameson : 

"It is, at least in one sense, rather a delicate point to touch 
on the life of Nell Gwynn ; we would fain be properly shocked, 
decorously grave, and becomingly moral; but as the lady says 
in Comus, 'to what end?' It were rather superfluous to set 
about proving that Nell was, in her day, a good-for-nothing 
sort of person ; in short, as wild a piece of frailty as ever wor<? 
a petticoat. In spite of such demonstrations, and of Bishop 
Burnet's objurgations to boot, she will not the less continue to 
be the idol of popular tradition, her very name provocative of 

a smile and of power to disarm the austerity of virtue and 

367 



368 NELL GWYNN. 

discountenance the gravity of wisdom. It is worth while to in- 
quire in what consists that strange fascination, which, after the 
lapse of a century and a half, still hangs round the memory of 
this singular woman. Why is her name still familiar and dear in 
the mouths of the people ? Why hath no man condemned her ? 
Why has satire spared her ? Why is there in her remembrance 
a charm so far beyond and so different from mere celebrity ? . . . 

"A woman, when she has once stepped astray, seldom pauses 
in her downward career, ' till guilt grows fate that was but choice 
before,' and far more seldom rises out of that debasement of 
person and mind, except by some violent transition of feeling, 
some revulsion of passion leading to the other extreme. In the 
case of Nell Gwynn, the contrary was remarkable. As years 
passed on, as habit grew, and temptation and opportunities in- 
creased, her conduct became more circumspect, and her character 
more elevated. The course of her life, which had begun in the 
puddle and sink of obscurity and profligacy, as it flowed, refined. 
For the humorous and scandalous stories of which she is the 
subject, some excuse may be found in her plebeian education 
and the coarseness of the age in which she lived ; when ladies 
of quality gambled and swore, what could be expected from the 
orange girl ? But though her language and manners bore to the 
last the taint of the tavern and the stage, hers was one of those 
fine natures which could not be corrupted ; the contaminating 
influence of the atmosphere around her had stained the surface, 
but -never reached the core." 

Mr. Cunningham's biography, as contributed to the Gentle- 
man's Magazine, thus opens: "A pious and learned divine, 
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, preached the funeral ser- 
mon of Nell Gwynn ; and the house on the Park side of Pall 
Mall in which she is known to have lived, though altered in its 
outward appearance since her time, now shelters the Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. What so good 
a man as Archbishop Tenison did not think an unfit subject for 



NELL GWYNN. 369 

a sermon, will not be thought, I trust, an unfit subject for a 
series of papers ; for the life that was spent remissly may yet 
convey a moral. . . . The English people have always enter- 
tained a peculiar liking for Nell Gwynn. There is a fascination 
about her name that belongs to no other woman of her particular 
class and condition. Thousands are atti acted by it, they know 
not why, and do not stop to inquire. It is the popular impres- 
sion that, with all her failings, she was a woman with a generous, 
open English heart ; that when raised from poverty and the 
lowest origin to affluence, she reserved her wealth for others 
rather than herself ; and that the influence which she possessed 
was often well exercised and never abused. Contrasted with 
others of a far superior rank in life and tried by far fewer 
temptations, there is much that marks and removes her from the 
common herd. For Nell Gwynn, pretty, witty Nell, there exists 
a tolerant and kindly regard which the following pages are 
designed to illustrate, and may perhaps serve in some measure 
to extend." 

Thus fortified by adequate examples, and placing ourselves 
under the protection of the precedents we have cited, we proceed 
with our delicate task. 

The horoscope of Nell Gwynn's nativity, still preserved in the 
museum at Oxford, states that she was born in London on the 
2d of February, 1650. Her father, as was proved a century 
afterwards, was Captain Thomas Gwynn, of the army, the 
descendant of an ancient family in Wales. A cellar in the 
Coal Yard in Drury Lane was undoubtedly the spot in which she 
first saw the light — though probably there was little enough to 
see. Her associations must have been of the most degrading 
kind ; for the Coal Yard, then an obscure and infamous resort, 
afterwards became notorious as one of the residences of Jona- 
than Wild. Her first occupation, when perhaps ten years old, 
was that of bar-tender, "to fill strong water to the gentlemen," 
as she herself expressed it ; and her second was to sell oranges 



370 NELL GWYNN. 

at Drury Lane Theatre, standing, with her fellow fruit venders, 
in the front row of the pit, with her back to the stage. The 
familiar cry, " Oranges, will you have any oranges?" must have 
come clear and invitingly from the lips of Nell Gwynn. The 
theatres had been closed for twenty-three years, during the 
wars of the Protectorate and the exile of the sovereign. They 
reopened with the restoration of Charles II. in 1660, with a 
splendor altogether unusual in those days, and to an eager and 
enthusiastic public. The old craved for an amusement they had 
long been denied, while the young were feverishly interested in 
the revival of an entertainment they had heard so praised. Two 
new theatres were built, the King's, o^ Drury Lane, erected 
on the site of the present edifice, and the Duke's, in Portugal 
Row. 

Two features added new zest to the fervor of the theatrical 
revival; Charles II. was the first English monarch who visited 
the play-house and witnessed a performance there, his prede- 
cessors having invariably summoned the players to the halls 
or cockpits attached to their palaces ; and during his reign, 
women's parts were, for the first time in the history of the 
British stage, enacted by women. The stage was lighted with 
wax candles ; the pit was uncovered, for the sake of light, as the 
performances commenced at three in the afternoon, so that, in 
case of rain, that part of the audience arose in disorder and 
went home. The dresses were magnificent, for the king, the 
queen and the duke gave their coronation suits to the actors, 
and the gentry contributed their court and birthday equipments 
which had been worn but once. Local scenery was also now for 
the first time introduced. 

Drury Lane opened on the afternoon of the 8th of April, 
1663, Miss Eleanor being a girl of thirteen. In her capacity 
of orange girl, she owed deference and obedience to a superior 
known as Orange Moll. It was thought beneath the character 
of a gentleman to chaffer with the fruitwomen over the price of 



NELL GWYNN. 371 

their goods, but it was deemed eminently becoming to bandy 
words with them and to exchange equivocal jests. 

The first mention of Fell Gwynn in English literature occurs 
in Pepys' Diary for Monday, the 3d of April, 1665. Pepys was 
at the Duke's Theatre, and mentions the fact that he sat next to 
" pretty witty Nell of the King's House," as the only redeeming 
feature of the entertainment. Kelly had now become an actress 
herself, though by what means or through whose influence we 
are not informed, even by the omnipresent Pepys. We know 
little or nothing of her during the plague and the great fire 
of London of the year 1666 ; but she again appears in the 
diary, on the 8th of December, 1667, in the character of Lady 
Wealthy, in " The English Monsieur," a comedy written for 
Nelly by the Hon. James Howard. Pepys thus commends the 
play and the players : " To the King's House and there did 
see a good part of the English Monsieur, which is a mighty 
pretty play, very witty and pleasant. And the women do very 
well ; but, above all, little Nelly ; that I am mightily pleased 
with the play, and much with the house, the women doing better 
than I expected ; and very fair women." His next reference to 
her, somewhat later, runs thus : " Mrs. Kneps brought to us 
Nelly, a most pretty woman, who acted the great part of Celia 
to-day very fine, and did it pretty well. I kissed her, and so did 
my wife, and a mighty pretty soul she is." He concludes the 
day's chronicle with an approving summary of all he had done 
during the twenty- four hours, " specially the kissing of Nell." 

Dryden now claimed the services of the young actress in his 
new tragi-comedy of " Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen," the 
plot of which had been suggested to the poet by the king. It 
was performed on the afternoon of the 2d of February, 1668. 
Mr. Pepys was of course present, and thus records his opinion : 
"The truth is, there is a comical part done by Nell, which is 
Florimel, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again 
by man or woman." Her part, though arduous, must have been 



372 NELL GWYNN. 

an unusually attractive one, for we are told that she was con- 
stantly on the stage ; that her dialogue was loose, merry and 
rattling ; that she went mad in one act, appeared in male attire 
in another, and danced a jig in the fifth. She also spoke the 
epilogue in behalf of the trembling author. Pepys speaks ad- 
miringly of her demeanor when disguised as a young gallant, 
and adds, "She hath the motion and carriage of a spark the 
most that ever I saw any man have." 

One of Nelly's earliest lovers was Lord Buckhurst, and her 
defenders claim, that whatever opinion the public may entertain 
of the morality of London in the reign of Charles II., it at least 
argues something for the taste of the humble orange girl, that 
her lover was considered and looked up to as the best bred man 
of his age ; that he had distinguished himself in the war against 
the Dutch ; he had written the best song of its kind, and bitter 
yet elegant satires ; he was a patron of every species of merit ; 
while his table was one of the last to exhibit the traditional 
hospitality of the English nobleman. He seems to have loved 
Nelly sincerely, and in a sonnet to her beauty declared that 



"All hearts fall a-leaping wherever she comes, 
And beat night and day like my Lord Craven's drams." 



The two lovers kept a merry house at Epsom during the 
midsummer months of 1668. Nelly returned to the stage in 
August, resumed some of her former parts, and created the 
character of Mirida in "All Mistaken," in which, being impor- 
tuned by a fat lover and a lean one, she tells the fat one she will 
marry him when he is leaner, and the lean one when he is fatter. 
In 1669 occurred the great change in Nelly's condition — "one 
that removed her from many temptations, and led to the exhibi- 
tion of traits of character and good feeling which more than 
account for the fascination connected with her name " — she 
became the mistress of the king. Buckhurst resigned her in 



NELLGWYNN. 373 

consideration of an office and a pension of £1,000, the promise 
of an earldom and an ambassadorship to France. Nelly con- 
tinued to perform all her theatrical engagements, dividing her 
time between Whitehall and Drury Lane, until the spring of 
1670, when Dryden's new tragedy of " The Conquest of Gran- 
ada," was postponed on account of her absence. After giving 
birth, on the 8th of May, to the future Duke of St. Albans, the 
first of the name, she resumed her study of the character of 
Almahide, the last she was destined to play. Charles became 
more fond of her than ever, fascinated by her charming per- 
formance of this character — an effect thus commemorated by 
Granville : 

"Granada lost, behold her pomps restored, 
And Almahide again by kings ador'd." 

Nell Gwynn is described to have been in person considerably 
below the middle size, but formed with perfect elegance ; the 
contour of her face was round, her features were delicate, her 
eyes bright and intelligent, and often positively closed by the 
merry laugh which pervaded her face ; her cheek was usually 
dimpled with smiles and her countenance radiant with hilarity, 
but when at rest it was soft and even pensive in its expression ; 
her voice was sweet and well modulated ; her hair glossy, abund- 
ant, and of a light auburn ; her hands were singularly small and 
beautiful, and her pretty feet so very diminutive as to afford 
occasion for mirth as well as admiration. 

The inconstant Charles, during the very height of his fancy 
for Nelly, became also violently enamored of one of the maids 
of honor to the Duchess of Orleans, M'lle Louise Kenee de 
Penencourt de Querouaille, a young lady of nineteen years. 
She returned the monarch's passion, and was created Duchess of 
Portsmouth. Nelly did not consider this infidelity on the part of 
his majesty as any excuse for unfaithfulness on her own, and 
took the rivalry of Madame Carwell — as her French name was 



374 NELL GWYNN. 

commonly pronounced — in thorough good part. Charles, at this 
period, lodged Kelly in a house on the south side of Pall Mall, 
with a garden towards St. James's Park, and sent her a lease for 
a term of years. She, considering the gift in its present shape 
unworthy of the King of England, returned him the papers with 
a merry jest at his expense. Charles admitted the justness of 
the reproof by conveying the house free to Nell and her repre- 
sentatives forever. " The truth of this story," says Cunningham, 
"is confirmed by the fact that the house which occupies the site 
of the one in which Nelly lived, now No. 79, and tenanted by 
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 
is the only freehold on the south or park side of Pall Mall." 

The antipathy prevailing at this period between the Protest- 
ants and Catholics doubtless contributed to swell Nell Gwynn's 
popularity with the people, by contrasting her with the French 
lady, her rival. She was an English girl — a Protestant — of 
humble origin, and had been a favorite during her short career 
upon the stage, and was both a beauty and a wit. Carwell was 
a French girl — a Catholic — of noble birth, beautiful indeed, but 
destitute of wit. Nelly became a popular idol ; and the chroni- 
cles of the day furnish a multitude of instances of her sway over 
the hearts of the people. She was one day riding in her coach 
at Oxford, when the mob, mistaking her for Madame Carwell, 
gathered round her, and commenced abusing her. She looked 
out of the window, in no wise disconcerted, and said, "Pray, 
good people, be civil : I am the Protestant one." The angry 
crowd became at once respectful. 

A goldsmith having made an elegant service of plate to be 
presented by the king to Madame Carwell, the people crowded 
round the windows to see it. On learning for whom it was 
intended, they burst into violent denunciations of the king, 
wished the silver was melted and poured down Carwell's throat, 
and unanimously declared "it had been much better bestowed 
upon Madame Ellen." 





NELL G-WYNN, 



NELLGWYNN. 375 

Madame de Sevigne* wrote thus from London upon the rival 
favorites : " Querouaille is laying up money and makes herself 
feared and respected by as many as she can ; but she did not 
foresee that she should find a young actress in her way, whom 
the king dotes on. She cannot detach him from her for an 
instant. The actress is as haughty as the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth : she defies her, makes light of her, steals the king away 
from her, and boasts of his preference. She is young, lively, 
careless, indiscreet, wild, and witty j she sings, dances, and acts 
her part with a good grace ; has a son by the king, and hopes to 
have him acknowledged.' 7 

Prints, epigrams, songs, and libels were constantly published 
upon this fruitful theme — the two favorites. In these popular 
invasions of the king's private life, Nelly invariably triumphed 
over her French competitor. One of her retorts upon the duchess 
was reduced to verse, and in this form has been preserved. It 
runs thus : 

"The Duchess of Portsmouth one time supped with the King's Majesty: 
Two chickens were at table when the Duchess would make 'em three; 
Nell Gwynn being by, denied the same: the Duchess speedily 
Eeply'd, 'Here's one, another two, and two and one make three.' 

""Tis well said, lady,' answered Nell; '0 King, here's one for thee, 
Another for myself, sweet Charles, 'cause you and I agree; 
The third she may take herself because she found the same !' 
The king himself laughed heartily, whilst Portsmouth blushed for shame." 

The favorite expletive of Charles II. was " Odd's fish!" and 
Nelly used to divert him exceedingly by making free with this 
expression at unexpected moments. She gave a concert* one 
night to the king, the duke his brother, and some half dozen of 
their intimate associates. The principal singer, Bowman, sang 
several of those extravagantly loyal songs which retain their 
popularity even to this day, and upon the conclusion of the 
entertainment, the king expressed himself delighted. "Then, 

2i 



376 NELL GWYNN. 

sir," said Nelly, "to show you do not speak like a courtier, 1 
hope you will make the performers a handsome present." The 
king felt in his pockets, and said he had no money; he asked the 
duke to lend him some. The duke made a search, and declared 
that he had none either. JSTell turned to the other guests, and, 
assuming the king's air and accent, exclaimed, " Odd's fish, what 
company have I got into !" 

The following expedient was resorted to by Nell, to induce 
the king to pay some attention to the affairs of the nation. One 
of the lords of the council, whom Charles would not permit to 
speak to him of business, complained to Nell of his provoking 
negligence. Nell laid him a wager of a hundred pounds that 
she would hit upon a scheme that would bring the merriest 
prince alive to the council that very night. She sent for Killi- 
grew, the manager of Drury Lane, and desired him to dress 
himself as if he were going on a journey, and to burst uncere- 
moniously into the king's apartment. She then told him what 
to say in reply to his certain " odd's fish," or perhaps more vio- 
lent explosion. He did as he was bid, and was received with a 
" What, Killigrew ! are you mad? Did I not order that nobody 
should disturb me ?" " Oh, I don't mind your orders — no, not 
I," returned Killigrew ; " and I'm going as fast as I can !" " Why, 
where are you going to?" asked his majesty. "To hell !" replied 
the comedian, "to fetch up Oliver Cromwell from thence, to 
take some care of the national concerns ; for I am sure your 
majesty takes none." Charles went that night to the council, 
and Nelly won her wager. 

Nell Grwynn gave birth to a second son on the 25th of 
December, 1671 ; he was named James, out of compliment to 
the Duke of York, and, like his elder brother, acknowledged by 
the king. Soon afterwards, Charles was seized with a mania for 
creating titles -and distributing orders and offices. Nelly saw 
peerages and earldoms showered right and left upon persons 
whom she thought less deserving of such distinctions than the 



NELL GWYNN. 377 

king's own flesh and blood. So she appealed to the source of all 
her favor, her wit, :md resolved to make an effort, in her own 
quaint way, in behalf of her eldest boy. So, while he was one 
day romping whh his father, she said, abruptly, "Come hither, 
you little bastard !" The king, very much shocked, scolded Nell 
roundly j she replied, with an air of demure submission, " I'm 
very sorry ; but I've no better name to call him by, poor boy !" 
The king laughed, felt the implied reproach, and admitted the 
plea. Charles Beauclerc, his eldest son by Nell Gwynn, was soon 
created Baron of Heddington and Earl of Burford, and, some- 
what later, Duke of St. Albans, Registrar of the High Court of 
Chancery, and Grand Falconer of England. He was betrothed 
by the king to Lady Diana de Yere, the daughter of the twen- 
tieth and last Earl of Oxford, and, in point of rank, the first 
heiress of the three kingdoms. " Though the lively orange-girl," 
says Cunningham, " was not spared to witness the marriage, yet 
she lived to see the future wife of her son in the infancy of those 
charms which made her one of the most conspicuous of the 
Kneller Beauties, still so attractive in the collection at Hampton 
Court." 

The idea of establishing a hospital at Chelsea for the veterans 
of the war, is believed to have originated with Nell Gwynn. The 
corner-stone was laid by the king in the spring of 1682, and the 
student of the history of his reign will not readily believe that 
he would have urged the building forward with the zeal he did, 
unmoved by some influence from without. The tradition is, that 
Nell was one day riding in the city in her coach, when an invalid 
soldier stopped at the open door of her carriage and solicited 
charity. He had been in service in the civil war, he said, and 
had lost a limb while fighting for the royal cause. He was now 
friendless and totally destitute. Nell Gwynn hastened to the 
king and laid the case before him. The interest thus awakened 
in behalf of one sufferer soon led to the reflection that there 
must be many others, disabled at Worcester and Marston Moor ; 



378 NELL GWYNN. 

and that the veterans who still lingered in the ranks of the stand- 
ing army which the wars of the restoration had produced, must 
soon give way to younger and more active substitutes. What 
would become of them, thus deprived in advanced years of their 
only means of livelihood? They would be dependent upon 
public charity and the casual bounty of the sympathetic. These 
reflections induced in Nell's mind the idea of an asylum for the 
crippled remnants of the war — an idea in which she enthusiasti- 
cally persevered, never letting her royal lover rest iill her 
benevolent purpose was accomplished. 

There are several facts which strongly support this popular 
tradition. Nelly was a soldier's daughter, and her early suffer- 
ings and privations had been those incident to a soldier's life. 
The benevolence of her character was well known, and her quick 
sensibilities would have been naturally enlisted in behalf of such 
patriotic sufferers as her war-worn proteges. She is still the idol 
of the pensioners, and with them the memory of Nell is sacred. 
But the circumstance most corroborative of the tradition is the 
fact that her portrait serves to this day as the sign of an old 
ale-house contiguous to the hospital. Sixty years ago, an inscrip- 
tion beneath the portrait, now illegible, chronicled in positive 
terms the part Nell had played in founding and erecting the 
hospital. The Rev. Daniel Lysons, in his Environs of London, 
published in 1795, speaking in the present tense, says : "Under- 
neath the portrait is an inscription attributing the foundation to 
her desire." This inn and the sign form part of the background 
in Wilkie's famous picture of the Chelsea Pensioners. Long 
may she swing, exclaims Cunningham, with her favorite lamb, in 
the row or street thus commemorated forever ! 

Charles II. was now approaching his end. Having prolonged 
a revel through Sunday night till Monday morning, he swooned 
away and lay for several hours in apoplexy, all hope being aban- 
doned by his physicians. He revived, but expired on the follow- 
ing Friday, the 6th of February, 1685. Though not absolutely 



NELL GWYNN. 379 

his dying wish, yet his last recommendation to his brother and 
successor, James II., was in these pathetic and memorable words : 
'.' Let not poor Nelly starve." Of this request, Charles James 
Fox says, in his History of James II., " that it is much to his 
honor ; and that they who censure it, seem, in their zeal to show 
themselves strict moralists, to have suffered their notions of vice 
and virtue to have fallen into strange confusion." Mrs. Jameson 
remarks of the dying speech, that it is one among the few traits 
which redeem the sensual and worthless Charles from utter 
contempt. 

Nell was to have been made Countess of Greenwich, had the 
king lived, if we may credit the following passage in a manu- 
script folio entitled "The Royall Cedar:" "Hellenor or Nel- 
guine, daughter to Thomas Guine, should bein advanced to be 
Countes of Greeniez, but hindered by the king's death." She 
went into mourning and sincerely lamented the loss of him whom 
so few others regretted ; hers was no fictitious sorrow for the 
death of the Cham of Tartary, as all official assumption of black 
was then termed. The king's straitened circumstances had before 
compelled her " to boil a portion of her plate ;" and now, if not 
arrested for debt, she was outlawed for the non-payment of 
several long-standing bills. During her outlawry, Otway, the 
poet and dramatist, and tutor to her son, died miserably of 
starvation ; this afflicted her more than her own destitution. 
King James, however, remembered his brother's dying request, 
and in the midst of his own pressing needs, caused the sum of 
£730 to be paid to one Richard Graham, " to be by him paid 
over to the several tradesmen, creditors of Mrs. Ellen Gwynn, 
•in satisfaction of their debts, for which the said Ellen stood out- 
lawed." In the same year, he made her also two separate 
presents of £500 ; and caused Beeswood Park, near Sherwood 
Forest of merry memory, and a demesne of the crown, to be 
settled upon her for life, and after her death, upon the Duke of 
St. Albans. He afterwards made her an allowance of £1,500 a 



380 NELL GWYNN. 

year. These acts of kindness towards Nelly gave rise to the 
rumor that she went to mass and was converted to popery, as it 
was well known that James desired to reestablish the Romish 
worship in the kingdom. The rumor was groundless ; Nelly 
always remained a Protestant. 

Eleanor Gwynn survived her lover little more than two years. 
She conducted herself with the strictest decorum, spending much 
of her time in devotion and a portion of her narrow means in 
beneficence. Her health began to decline, and Dr. Lower, the 
first doctor in London, who had long visited her as a gossip, 
now attended her as a physician. She sank rapidly, and Lower 
bethought him of the propriety of sending for a clergyman. A 
satire which had been lately published represented her as pining 
upon her death-bed, and as saying, 

"Send for Dr. Burnet, or I die." 

But Bishop Burnet considered her ' ' the wildest and indiscreetest 
creature that ever was in a court," and Lower thought best to 
apply to a less intolerant divine. Dr. Tenison, afterwards Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, was then vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields 
and Nell's residence in Pall Mall was within the limits of his 
parish. He was known to be a liberal and courageous minister 
in those difficult days of the church. Lower asked his attend- 
ance, and brought him to the dying woman's bedside. 

On the 9th of July she made her will, revoking all former 
bequests. There is nothing peculiar in this instrument, beyond 
the artlessness with which she styles herself a spinster, and 
recommends herself " whence she came, in hopes of a joyfu 
resurrection," giving and devising all her property whatsoever 
11 to her dear natural son, his grace the Duke of St. Albans, and 
the heirs of his body." But the requests contained in a codicil 
added three months later, are worthy of more specific mention. 
In this she begged that she might be buried in the church of 



NELL GWYNN. 381 

St. Martin's-in-the-Fields ; that Dr. Tenison would preach her 
funeral sermon ; that her son the duke would give £100 to 
Dr. Tenison for taking poor debtors out of prison during the 
coming winter ; that, to show her charity to those who differed 
from her in religion, £50 might be applied to the use of the 
poor of the Romish faith of the parish of St. James ; that her 
present servants might have mourning and a year's wages beyond 
the wages due ; and that his grace would be pleased to lay out 
£20 yearly for the release of poor debtors on Christmas day. 
She is also said, though no such provision occurs in the will, 
to have left a considerable annual sum to St. Martin's church, 
on condition that on every Thursday evening in the year, 
there should be six men employed, for the space of one hour, 
in ringing, for which they were to have a roasted shoulder 
of mutton and ten shillings for beer. Another authority adds 
that the ringers of St. Martin's enjoy this donation to this day. 

One month after signing these her last bequests, Nell Gwynn 
died, in November, 1687, her last hours and indeed the last 
years of her life having been spent in sincere repentance and 
" in all the contrite symptoms of a Christi in sincerity." She 
was buried on the night of the 17th, in St. Martin's-in-the- 
Fields, and Dr. Tenison preached her funeral sermon, urging 
her benevolence, her penitence and her meritorious death as 
examples to all who heard him. Though the funeral was not 
an ostentatious one, the expenses amounted to £375, and were 
exactly met by the next quarter's allowance, which, by the way 
King James ordered to be continued to her son. The Duke of 
St. Albans accepted the pecuniary responsibility placed upon 
him in the codicil to his mother's will, and signed an acknow- 
ledgment to that effect. 

Dr. Tenison did not escape censure and persecution for his 
bold and charitable act. He was compelled to denounce as a 
forgery a sermon published and cried about the streets as the 
one that he had preached over the coffin of Nell Gwynn. His 



382 NELL GWYNN. 

application for the vacant see of Lincoln, in 1691, was opposed 
by the young Queen Mary's advisers, on the ground that "he 
had preached a notable funeral sermon in praise of Ellen 
G-wynn." But the queen replied, "What then? I have heard 
as much, and this is a sign that the poor unfortunate woman 
died penitent ; for, if I have read a man's heart through his 
looks, had she not made a truly pious end, the doctor never 
could have been induced to speak well of her." The excellent 
vicar was appointed to the see, and as we have said, lived to 
fill with honor and renown the Archbishopric of Canterbury. 

The whole tenor of contemporaneous testimony, as well as of 
later criticism, is that of apology if not even of justification. 
We have already cited Tenison, Queen Mary, Mrs. Jameson, 
Cunningham, Fox, Pepys and others, and might multiply favora- 
ble opinions to any extent. Colly Cibber avers that "if the 
common fame of her may be believed, which in my memory was 
not doubted, she had less to be laid to her charge than any 
other of those ladies who were in the same state of preferment." 
Douglas Jerrold, in the preface to his drama of " Nell Gwynn, or 
the Prologue," thu; ardently assumes her defence : " Her whole 
life proved that error had been forced upon her by circumstances 
rather than indulged by choice. It was under this impression 
that the following little comedy was undertaken ; under this 
conviction an attempt has been made to show some glimpses 
of the 'silver lining' of a character, to whose influence over 
an unprincipled voluptuary we owe a national asylum for veteran 
soldiers, and whose brightness shines with the most amiable 
lustre in many actions of her life and in the last disposal of her 
worldly effects." Mrs. Jameson adds that Nell introduced into 
court " the same frolic gaiety, the same ingenuous nature, and 
the same kind and cordial benevolence which had rendered 
her adored among her comrades. Her wit was as natural and as 
peculiar to herself as the perfume to the flower. She seems 
to have been, as the Duchess de Chaulnes expressed it, ' femme 



NELL GWYNN. 383 

(Tesprit, par la grace de Dieu.' Her bon-mots fell from her lips 
with such an unpremeditated felicity of expression, and her tone 
of humor was so perfectly original, that even her maddest flights 
became her, as if, says one of her contemporaries, she alone had 

the patent from heaven to engross all hearts The truth 

is, Nell had a natural turn for goodness which survived all her 
excesses ; she was wild and extravagant, but not rapacious or 
selfish ; frail, not vicious. At the time that the king's mistresses 
were everywhere execrated for their avarice and arrogance, it 
was remarked that Nell Gwynn never asked anything for her- 
self, never gave herself unbecoming airs, as if she deemed her 
unhappy situation a subject of pride ; there is not a single 
instance of her using her influence over Charles for an unworthy 
purpose ; but on the contrary, the presents which the king's 
love or bounty lavished upon her, she gave and spent freely ; 
and misfortune, deserved or undeserved, never approached her 
in vain." Mrs. Hale thus adds her tribute of exoneration : 
" Poor Nelly was the victim of circumstances, not the votarj' 
of vice ; and of the inmates of that wicked and corrupt court, 
she alone has won pity and forgiveness from posterity. She 
deserves this, for she was pitiful to others." 

The title of Duke of St. Albans still exists in the person 
of the fifth of the name. Nell's eldest son lived to distinguish 
himself at the battle of Belgrade, and to die a knight of the 
garter. He was the father of eight sons by the Lady Diana de 
Yere. Of the second and third duke of the name, nothing 
of moment is known, but the fourth brought the almost for- 
gotten title conspicuously before the public, by marrying, about 
the year 1825, the widow of the millionaire Coutts. She had 
begun life as an actress, under the name of Harriet Mellon. 
As she had no children by either the banker or the duke, she 
left the enormous wealth which the former had willed to her, to 
the exclusion of his children by a previous marriage, to her 
step grand-daughter Angela Burdett, on the condition that she 



384 NELL GWYNN. 

should assume the name of Ooutts in addition to her own. This 
was the origin of the enormous wealth of Angela Burdett Ooutts, 
and in this way is "pretty witty Nell" connected with the 
richest private woman in the world, and the most munificent 
benefactress of modern times. 



LADY MART WORTLEY MONTAGU. 



Lady Mary Pierrepont was the eldest daughter of Evelyn, 
Duke of Kingston, and of the Lady Mary Fielding : she was the 
own cousin of Fielding the novelist. She was born at Thoresby, 
in Nottinghamshire, in or about the year 1690 ; she lost her 
mother at the age of four years, having at the time two sisters 
younger than herself. Her biographers differ widely upon the 
subject of her education, one asserting that the early dawn of 
her genius awakened her father to the necessity of sedulously 
cultivating her natural gifts, another attributing her proficiency 
wholly to her own indomitable perseverance. Under whichever 
influence it was that her youthful studies were prosecuted, there 
can be no doubt of her precocious excellence in Greek, Latin, 
and French. Bishop Burnet superintended her education at a 
later period, and read and corrected her manuscript translation 
of the Enchiridion of Epictetus. 

That she was a favorite with her father in her early years, 
and that whether he cared to foster her talents or not, he at 
least appreciated them, is evident from the following anecdote 
of her first public triumph. The gentlemen of the famous Kit- 
cat Club, of which her father was a member, having met to 
choose toasts for the year, the whim seized him to nominate her 



386 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

then but eight years old, on the ground of her superior beauty. 
The other members demurred, alleging that the rules of the 
club forbade them to elect a beauty, whose claim to the honor 
depended upon report alone. So Lord Kingston sent for Lady 
Mary, that she might defend his choice and substantiate her 
claim by her actual presence. She came, sumptuously dressed, 
and was received with acclamations. Her health was drunk with 
all the honors, and her name engraved in due form upon a 
drinking-glass. She was passed from lap to lap, caressed, kissed, 
and nattered by the Kitcat statesmen, wits, artists, and poets ; 
her father ordered her picture to be painted for the clubroom, 
that she might be enrolled a regular toast. 

As she grew up, while still pursuing her studies with unwea- 
ried ardor, she assumed, at intervals, the direction of the various 
departments of her father's household. The most important 
duty she was thus called upon to fulfill was that of carver at 
table, upon the public days of the borough. To prepare herself 
for this service, she took lessons three times a week of a pro- 
fessor who taught the art scientifically, and on occasions when 
she was to exercise her skill, ate her own dinner an hour or two 
beforehand, in order that her strength might not give out, nor 
her own appetite interrupt her devotion to the appetites of 
others. No one was allowed to assist her, every joint being 
taken to her in turn, and her father's exclusive duty being to 
push the bottle. It was an honor to be served by her, and an 
offence to be omitted, so that we are told that "the most incon- 
siderable among the guests — the curate or squire's younger 
brother — if suffered through her neglect to help himself to a 
slice of the mutton placed before him, would have chewed it in 
bitterness, and gone home an affronted man, half inclined to give 
a wrong vote at the next election." Thus passed her youth, the 
scenes which we have described not being sufficiently frequent 
to interrupt her leisure or become a disturbing cause in the 
seclusion of her life. 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 



387 



Her most intimate friend was Mrs. Anne Wortley, daughter 
{■{ Admiral Montagu, the first Earl of Sandwich. Her brother, 
ih Honorable Edward Wortley Montagu, a scholar and a poli- 
tician, the companion and intimate associate of Addison, Steele, 
and Congreve, saw Lady Mary, then in her twentieth year, by 
accident, in his sister's room. It was not the fashion, nor could 
it have been the interest, of the wits of those days to associate 
with ladies — the latter having been qualified by education and 
habit for no avocations better than card-playing, tea-drinking, or 
the retailing of scandal. The meeting of the two compelled an 
introduction, and the scholar left the apartment dazzled by Lady 
Mary's beauty, charmed by her wit, and gratified beyond mea- 
sure by her cultivation and classic tastes. He was allowed by 
his sister to read the letters which passed between them, and 
did not disguise his admiration of the sentiments and style of 
her correspondent. Anne Wortley died soon afterwards, and 
her brother and Lady Mary, who had both of them very nearly 
avowed their love, continued the epistolary intercourse. They 
soon became engaged : from one of the lady's letters written 
Upon the subject of marriage, we make the following extract : 

"If we marry, our happiness must consist in loving one 
another ; 'tis principally my concern to think of the most prob- 
able method of making that love eternal. You object against 
living in London : I am not fond of it myself, and readily give it 
up to you, though I am assured there needs more art to keep a 
fondness alive in solitude, where it generally preys upon itself. 
There is one article absolutely necessary — to be ever beloved, 
one must be ever agreeable. There is no such thing as being 
agreeable without a thorough good humor — a natural sweetness 
of temper enlivened by cheerfulness. Whatever natural funds 
of gaiety one is born with, 'tis necessary to be entertained with 
agreeable objects. Anybody capable of taking pleasure, when 
they confine themselves to one place, should take care 'tis the 
place in the world the most agreeable. 



388 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

11 Whatever you may now think (now perhaps you may have 
some fondness for me), though your love should continue in full 
force, there are hours when the most beloved mistress would be 
troublesome. People are not forever (nor is it in human nature 
that they should be) disposed to be fond ; you would be glad to 
find in me the friend and the companion. To be agreeably the 
last, it is necessary to be gay and entertaining. A perpetual 
solitude, in a place where you see nothing to raise your spirits, 
at length wears them out, and conversation insensibly falls into 
dull and insipid. When I have no more to say to you, you will 
like me no longer. How dreadful is that view ! I shall lose the 
vivacity which should entertain you, and you will have nothing 
to recompense you for what you have lost. Yery few people 
that have settled entirely in the country, but have grown at 
length weary of one another. The lady's conversation generally 
falls into a thousand impertinent effects of idleness, and the 
gentleman falls in love with his dogs and his horses, and out of 
love with everything else. I am not now arguing in favor of 
the town ; you have answered me on that point. But 'tis my 
opinion, 'tis necessary, to be happy, that we neither of us think 
any place more agreeable than that where we are." 

Lord Kingston, who knew that Mr. Wortley possessed a large 
landed property, had cordially approved the match. But when 
the marriage contract and settlements came under consideration, 
and Mr. Wortley, whose observation had been drawn towards the 
pernicious effects of the practice of entail, declined settling his 
real estate upon his first male child, Lord Kingston refused to 
continue the negotiation, declaring that he would never see his 
grandson a beggar. Mr. Wortley tartly rejoined, that he would 
never blindly bestow wealth upon one who might be unworthy 
to possess it — who might prove a spendthrift, an idiot, or a 
villain. The match was broken off, though the lovers still corre- 
sponded and often met in secret. Lord Kingston presented anoth- 
ei suitor to his daughter, threatening her with imprisonment 



L.ADY MAKY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 389 

in some remote place, and with the pittance of £400 a year 
after his death, if she persisted in disobeying his wishes. She 
replied by letter that her aversion to the man he proposed was 
too great to be overcome ; that she should be miserable beyond 
belief ; but that she was in his hands, and that he might dispose 
of her as he thought fit. To her astonishment, he took this 
answer as a compliance, and proceeded with the preliminaries of 
the wedding. Lady Mary then consented to a stolen interview 
and a clandestine marriage with the man whom, against her will, 
she had learned to love. In her letter appointing the time and 
place occurs the following passage : 

11 You made no reply to one part of my letter concerning my 
fortune. I am afraid you flatter yourself that my father may be 
at length reconciled and brought to reasonable terms. I am 
convinced, by what I have often heard him say, speaking of 
other cases like this, that he never will. Reflect now for the 
last time in what manner you must take me. I shall come to 
you with only a nightgown and petticoat, and that is all you will 
ever get by me. I told a lady of my friends what I intended to 
do. You will think her a very good friend when I tell you she 
proffered to lend us her house. I did not accept of this till I 
had let you know it. If you think it more convenient to carry 
me to your lodgings, make no scruple of it. Let it be where it 
will ; if I am your wife, I shall think no place unfit for me where 
you are." 

The lovers were privately married by special license, bearing 
date August 12, 1712, Lady Mary being in her twenty-second 
year. They remained in the country for three years, their estab- 
lishment being too limited to permit a residence in London. 
Upon the death of Queen Anne, in 1714, they removed to the 
city, Mr. Wortley's previous political course having marked him 
as an earnest supporter of the new administration. Lady Mary 
soon made her appearance at St. James's ; and her beauty, 
elegance and vivacity at once secured for her a foremost place 



390 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

in the court of George the First. The rival wits, Addison and 
Pope, professed and doubtless felt the deepest admiration for 
her uncommon genius. That of Pope ripened in after years into 
a more tender sentiment ; to the bitter malignity into which 
her indifference provoked him, we shall have occasion to refer 
in the proper place. 

In June, 1716, Mr. Wortley resigned his situation as lord of 
the treasury, in order to accept an appointment as ambassador 
to the Sublime Porte. His wife, whose deep attachment he was 
far from requiting, resolved to accompany him, with her infant 
son, and commenced in August their arduous journey over the 
continent of Europe. Lady Montagu enjoyed for a long time 
the reputation of being the first Englishwoman who had had the 
curiosity and spirit to visit the Levant ; but it seems probable 
that both Lady Puget and Lady Winchester had visited Constan- 
tinople before her. Pope wrote her a letter soon after her 
departure, in which he used this language: " May that person 
for whom you have left all the world be so just as to prefer you 
to all the world ! I believe his good understanding has engaged 
him to do so hitherto, and I think his gratitude must for the 
future." 

Lady Mary's letters to her friends, but principally to her 
sister, Lady Mar, describe in vivid colors the incidents and 
episodes of the adventurous journey. She extols the cleanliness 
of Rotterdam, observing that the Dutch maids wash the pave- 
ment of the street with more industry than the English maids do 
the London bed-chambers. She rhapsodizes upon the romantic 
banks of the Danube, and is amazed at the magnificence of 
Vienna and the chaste elegance of Schcenbrunn. The poverty of 
Bohemia and the snows of Hungary somewhat dampen the 
enthusiasm of the aristocratic traveller. Through Raab, Buda, 
Belgrade and Peterwaradin, she pushes on to Adrianople. Her 
first letter, written at this point, was addressed to her Royal 
Highness the Princess of Wales ; her second, to Lady Rich, a 









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LAEY MARY WDRTLEY MDNTA&U, 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 391 

member of the princess' household, is one of the most famous in 
her published correspondence, from the discussions to which it 
gave rise. As Lady Montagu's claim to literary distinction 
rests upon her epistolary merit, we shall not hesitate to quote 
largely from the descriptive portions of her letters. The follow- 
ing is her account of a visit to the bagnio at Sophia, one of the 
most beautiful towns in the Turkish empire, and famous for its 
hot baths. After mentioning the hall of entrance, she says : 

" The next room is a very large one, paved with marble, and 
all round it are two raised sofas of marble, one above another. 
There were four fountains of cold water in this room, falling first 
into marble basins, and then running on the floor in little chan- 
nels made for that purpose, which carried the streams into the 
next room, something less than this, with the same sort of marble 
sofas, but so hot with steams of sulphur proceeding from the 
baths joining to it, it was impossible to stay there with one's 
clothes on. . . . The first sofas were covered with cushions and 
rich carpets, on which sat the ladies ; and on the second their 
slaves, behind them, but without any distinction of rank by their 
dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, 
stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. Yet there 
was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture among them. 
They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which 
Milton describes our general mother with. There were many 
among them as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess was 
drawn by the pencil of a Guido or a Titian, and most of their 
skins shiningly white, only adorned by their beautiful hair, 
divided into many tresses, hanging on their shoulders, braided 
either with pearls or ribbons, perfectly representing the figures 
of the Graces. 

"I was here convinced of the truth of a reflection I have 

often made, that if it were the fashion to go naked, the face 

would be hardly observed. I perceived that the ladies of the 

most delicate skins and finest shapes had the greatest share of 
25 



392 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

my admiration, though their faces were sometimes less beautiful 
than those of their companions. To tell you the truth, I had the 
wickedness to wish secretly that Mr. Jervas could have been 
there invisible. I fancy it would have very much improved his 
art, to see so many fine women naked, in different postures, 
some in conversation, some working, others drinking coffee or 
sherbet, and many negligently lying on their cushions, while 
their slaves — generally pretty girls of seventeen or eighteen — 
were employed in braiding their hair in several pretty fancies. 
In short, it is the women's coffee-house, where all the news of 
the town is told, scandal invented, etc. They generally take this 
diversion once a week, and stay there at least four or five hours, 
without taking cold by immediately coming out of the hot bath 
into the cold room, which was very surprising to me. The lady 
that seemed the most considerable among them entreated me to 
sit by her, and would fain have undressed me for the bath. I 
excused myself with some difficulty. They being, however, all so 
earnest in persuading me, I was at last forced to open my shirt 
and show them my stays, which satisfied them very well ; for I 
saw they believed I was locked up in that machine, and that it 
was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they 
attributed to my husband. 

"Adieu, madam; I am sure I have now entertained you with 
an account of such a sight as you never saw in your life, and 
what no book of travels could inform you of, as it is no less than 
death for a man to be found in one of these places." 

Mr. "Wortley remained two months at Adrian ople, whither the 
Sultan Achmet III. had removed his court from the capital of 
the empire. The letters of Lady Mary give lively pictures of 
the domestic manners and official ceremonies of the Turks. She 
even obtained admission to the seraglio, and her pages devoted 
to this visit actually glow with the ardor of her admiration of 
the lovely Fatima. She adopted the Turkish dress and wrote to 
her sister that it was admirably becoming — consisting as it did 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 393 

of a pair of thin, rose-colored damask drawers, very full and 
reaching to the shoes ; of a fine white silk gauze smock, with 
wide shirt sleeves, and closed at the neck with a diamond button, 
but "through which the shape and color of the bosom are very 
well to be distinguished ;" of a tight-fitting waistcoat of white 
damask, fringed with gold and fastened with diamond buttons ; 
of a girdle, four fingers broad, made of exquisite embroidery on 
satin, and fastened in front with a clasp of diamonds. Her 
head-dress was a talpock, a cap of light shining silver cloth, 
jauntily fixed on one side of the head. In this dress, which 
she found a very effective disguise, she visited many places of 
interest incognita, jostling janizaries in the bazaars and drinking 
sherbet at the camp. 

On her arrival at Constantinople, and after giving birth to a 
daughter, she devoted herself to the study of the language, under 
the direction of one of Mr. Wortley's dragomans. She was 
already a proficient in French and Italian, and had considerable 
knowledge of the German, so that, as she was compelled to speak 
all these and Turkish besides, she felt herself in danger of losing 
her English. "I live in a place," she says, "that very well 
represents the Tower of Babel : my grooms are Arabs ; my foot- 
men, French, English and Germans ; my nurse, an Armenian ; 
my housemaids, Russians ; half a dozen other servants, Greeks ; 
my steward, an Italian ; my janizaries, Turks ; so that I live in 
the perpetual hearing of this medley of sounds, which produces 
an extraordinary effect upon the people that are born here ; for 
they learn all these languages at the same time, and without 
knowing any one of them well enough to read or write in it. 
There are very few men, women, or even children here, that do 
not have the same compass of words in five or six of them. As I 
prefer English to all the rest, I am extremely mortified at the 
daily decay of it in my head, where, I'll assure you, with grief 
of heart, it is reduced to such a small number of words, I cannot 
recollect any tolerable phrase to conclude my letter with, and 



394 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

am forced to tell your ladyship very bluntly, that I am yours, 
etc." 

During the heat of the summer months, it was the custom 
of the European embassies to withdraw to the various villas 
situated upon the borders of the Bosphorus. Lady Montagu 
chose the delightful retreat of Belgrade village, about fourteen 
miles from the capital. In the deep glades and charming forest 
scenery of this spot, she spent the season of 1717, and a portion 
of that of 1718. It was here that occurred the incident to which 
she owes her fame, even more than to her literary excellence. 
She observed the prevalence of a custom which was called 
ingrafting — now known as inoculation — which consisted of the 
introduction, into the blood of a patient, of matter taken from a 
small pox pustule — a process which invariably produced a milder 
form of the disease than if taken in the natural way. She 
examined the subject with philosophical curiosity, and in the 
following graphic letter gives the result of her observations : 

" Belgkade, Ap. 1, 0. S. 1717. 
" Apropos of distempers, I am going to tell you of a thing 
that will make you wish yourself here. The small pox, so fatal 
and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless, by the 
invention of ingrafting, which is the term they give it. There is 
a set of old women who make it their business to perform the 
operation every autumn, in the month of September, when the 
great heat is abated. People send to one another to know if 
any of their family has a mind to have the small pox ; they 
make parties for this purpose, and when they are met — com- 
monly fifteen or sixteen together — the old woman comes with 
a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small pox, 
and asks what vein you please to have opened. She immediately 
rips open that which you offer to her, with a large needle- • 
which gives you no more pain than a common scratch — and 
puts into the vein as much matter as will lie upon the head 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 395 

of her needle, and after that, binds up the little wound with 
a hollow bit of shell ; and in this manner opens four or five 
veins. The Grecians have commonly the superstition of opening 
one in the middle of the forehead, one in each arm and one 
on the breast, to mark the sign of the cross ; but this has a very 
ill effect, all these wounds leaving little scars, and is not done by 
those who are not superstitious, who choose to have them in the 
legs or that part of the arm that is concealed. 

"The children or young patients play together all the rest 
of the day and are in perfect health to the eighth. Then the 
fever begins to seize them, and they keep their beds two days, 
very seldom three. They have very rarely above twenty or 
thirty in their faces, which never mark ; and in eight days' time 
they are as well as before their illness. Where they are 
wounded, there remain running sores during the distemper, 
which I don't doubt is a great relief to it. Every year thousands 
undergo this operation ; and the French ambassador says plea- 
santly, that they take the small pox here by way of diversion, as 
they take the waters in other countries. There is no example 
of any one that has died in it ; and you may believe I am 
well satisfied of the safety of this experiment, since I intend 
to try it upon my dear little son. 

"I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful 
invention into fashion in England ; and I should not fail to write 
to some of our doctors very particularly about it, if I knew 
any one of them that I thought had virtue enough to destroy 
such a considerable branch of revenue for the good of mankind. 
But that distemper is too beneficial to them, not to expose to all 
their resentment the hardy wight that should undertake to put 
an end to it. Perhaps, if I should live to return, I may, how- 
ever, have courage to war with them. Upon this occasion, 
admire the heroism in the heart of your friend, etc." 

She kept her word in regard to a trial of the process upon 



396 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

her son. She chronicles her success in a letter from Belgrade tc 
Mr. Wortley at Pera, nearly a year afterwards : 

"March 23, 1718. 

" Ye Boy was engrafted last Tusday, and is at ys time sing- 
ing and playing and very impatient for his supper. I pray God 

my next may give as good an Account of him I cannot 

engraft ye girl ; her nurse has not had ye small Pox." 

Mr. Wortley was recalled late in the year 1717, his embassy 
having failed through causes which it would be useless to detail 
here. He did not start upon his return till June of the following 
year. He and his family pursued their way through the Archi- 
pelago, of which Lady Mary wrote admirable descriptions ii 
prose, commencing with the following proem in verse : 

"WarmM with poetic transport, I survey 
The immortal islands and the well-known sea; 
For here so oft the muse her harp has strung, 
That not a mountain rears its head unsung." 

They landed at Tunis and thence crossed the Mediterranean 
to Genoa. They then proceeded to England through Turin, 
Lyons and Paris, Lady Mary dispatching numerous letters from 
every point to friends at home. They arrived late in October, 
1718. Lady Mary was received with great favor by the Princess 
of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, and she at once resumed at 
court the position she had left, adding to her previous reputation 
as a wit and a beauty, that of a philosophical traveller and an 
observant inquirer. She was induced by Pope to fix her resi- 
dence in the celebrated village of Twickenham, where for a time 
the two rivals continued to live in harmony and mutual esteem. 
She speculated deeply in South Sea stock, and was in the receipt 
of letters from the Secretary of State promising her further 
investments in the seductive scrip, and from Mr. Pope, advising 



LADY MARY WOIiTLEY MONTAGU. 397 

her to buy, as "he is informed from the first and best hands that 
it will be a certain gain." She sat for her portrait to Sir Godfrey 
Kneller, Pope being present at the sittings, and, when the 
picture was finished, writing an impromptu sonnet to the beauti- 
ful original upon the cover of her manuscript book of letters. 

Lady Mary now resolved to devote herself to the propagation, 
in her native land, of the Byzantine process of inoculation. We 
have said that the operation had not yet been performed upon 
her daughter ; this child was fortunately reserved to be the first 
example of inoculation in England. After interesting the royal 
family in the subject, she caused the little Mary to be ingrafted 
with matter taken from a dying patient, by Dr. Maitland, who 
had been the physician to the embassy in Turkey. JSTo evil 
consequences followed, and the result, proving that the success 
of the experiment was in no manner connected with climate 
or other variable influences, encouraged Lady Montagu to 
persevere in her beneficent purpose. Dr. Maitland's second 
operation was performed one month afterwards, upon a son of 
Dr. Keith, and was eminently successful. But the public now 
began to view the innovation with suspicion and dread, and three 
months elapsed before another trial was made. The Princess 
Anne was taken dangerously ill with the small pox, and the 
Princess Caroline, her mother, wishing to secure her other 
children from the infection, but not yet daring to subject them 
to the ordeal, begged the lives of six condemned criminals, 
who were promised the royal pardon, if, after inoculation, they 
escaped death by the disease. They were ingrafted by Dr. Mait- 
land on the 9th of August, and were set at liberty upon their 
recovery from the mild distemper which ensued. One of them, 
indeed, who had had the small pox in his youth, was not affected 
at all, and this new illustration of the operation of the system 
was considered sufficiently interesting to counterbalance the 
easy escape of the criminal. In April, 1722, eleven charity- 
children of tha parish of St. James were successfully ingrafted, 



398 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 

and the Princess of Wales, at last convinced of the entire safety 
of the process, caused her daughters Amelia and Carolina to 
undergo the operation. Sustained by this illustrious example, 
ingrafting made rapid progress throughout the kingdom. At 
last a death occurred, then another, and finally a third. This 
made three deaths out of one hundred and eighty-two inocu- 
lations, or one in sixty, whereas the proportion of mortality, 
in cases of the small pox communicated naturally, had usually 
been one in six. 

The medical profession and the clergy now rose in unanimous 
reprobation of the practice, and Lady Montagu's beneficent 
exertions were treated as the crazy efforts of a woman whose 
nead had been turned by a long residence in a barbarous land. 
The principal medical objections were the following : that as 
inoculation did not induce the veritable small pox, it could not 
secure the patient from having it — an argument which was satis- 
factorily answered by sending one of the inoculated and recovered 
Newgate prisoners to Hertford, where the small pox was raging, 
and keeping him in bed ten days with a man grievously afflicted 
by the distemper, without his being in the slightest degree 
affected ; that inoculation might induce other diseases, should 
the variolous matter be taken from unhealthy subjects — a state- 
ment which the records of the hospitals amply disproved ; and 
that it was folly purposely to have a disease which one was not 
at all sure to have even by accident — a frivolous piece of reason- 
ing, sufficiently answered by the fact that the small pox carried 
off two million victims annually in Russia alone, and that it was 
invariably fatal in England in two cases out of eleven. 

But the medical objections thus raised did not operate so 
powerfully upon the public mind as the moral and religious 
arguments adduced by the prejudices and bigotry of the age. 
The idea of bringing diseases upon oneself was denounced as " a 
Circassian impiety." Lady Montagu was stigmatized from the 
pulpit as a poisoner and a murderess, instigated by auackery, 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 399 

atheism and avarice. The author of an anonymous pamphlet 
invoked the interference of parliament against a system by which 
" every quack may now be a hireling of the devil, and like the 
banditti in Italy, be ready to do the drudgery of removing lives, 
under the mask of a cure, inoculating death instead of a disease." 
The Rev. Mr. Massey preached a sermon from the second chapter 
of Job, in which he represented the boils upon the body of that 
afflicted personage as the result of an inoculation performed 
upon him by the devil. This assertion of the whimsical divine 
was turned against him by an epigrammatist, who maintained 
that Job was much benefited by the operation ; as thus : 

"We're told by one of the black robe 
The Devil inoculated Job; 
Suppose 'tis true what he does tell, 
Pray, neighbor, did not Job do well?" 

Another divine asserted that it had never yet come into men's 
minds to take the work out of nature's hands, and raise diseases 
by art in the human body. To this Dr. Maitland replied that 
the practice of physic was founded upon the principle of curing 
natural by raising artificial diseases, and asked if bleeding was 
not an artificial hemorrhage, and purging an artificial dysentery. 
The epigrammatists on the other side pursued the same argu- 
ment in this wise : " What, sir, may I ask, is correction at the 
cart's tail, but the noble art of muscular phlebotomy ? What is 
breaking on the wheel, but the art of making dislocations and 
fractures, and differs from the wounds and amputations only by 
the manner and intention ?" 

Other theological arguments were, that the voluntary taking 
of a disease was a usurpation of the sacred prerogative of God : 
that we ought not to do evil, that good may come of it ; that 
fear was a dangerous element in the small pox, and that inocu- 
lation increased the causes of fear, by lessening our faith and 
trust in Providence. These allegations were in turn denied and 



400 LADY MARY WORT LEY MONTAGU. 

refuted, and for years the warfare was waged with great acri 
mony and virulence. Common sense at last prevailed, and the 
" Circassian impiety" spread throughout the civilized world. As 
early as the summer of 1723, Lady Montagu wrote: "Lady 
Byng has inoculated both her children ; the operation is not yet 
over, but I believe they will do very well. Since that experi- 
ment has not had any ill effect, the whole town are doing the 
same thing, and I am so much pulled about, and solicited to visit 
people, that I am forced to run into the country to hide myself." 
Somewhat later she wrote : "I know nobody who has hitherto 
repented the operation, though it has been very troublesome to 
some fools, who had rather be sick by the doctor's prescription 
than in health in rebellion to the college." Still, such had been 
the annoyances endured by her in her beneficent crusade, that 
she afterwards admitted that "if she had foreseen the persecution 
and obloquy she was to endure, she would not have attempted 
to introduce inoculation." She, nevertheless, lived to see herself 
ranked as a benefactress, and to read in statistical journals cal- 
culations by which she was proved to have saved 139,652 lives 
out of every million inhabitants in the kingdom. Steele's Plain 
Dealer thus eulogized her in 1724: "It is an observation of some 
historian that England has owed to women the greatest blessings 
she has been distinguished by. In the case we are now upon, 
this reflection will stand justified. We are indebted to the reason 
and the courage of a lady for the introduction of this art, which 
gains such strength in its progress, that the memory of its illus- 
trious foundress will be rendered sacred by it to future ages — a 
good so lasting and vast, that none of those wide endowments 
and deep foundations of public charity which have made so much 
noise in the world deserve at all to be compared with it." 

For three-quarters of a century, inoculation continued to be 
practised in Europe and America, as a means of modifying and 
rendering harmless a disease to which all were subject, from 
which none could declare themselves exempt, and which, when it 



LADY MARY WOETLE\ MONTAGU 401 

did not destroy the patient, usually left him mutilated and dis- 
figured. Lady Montagu prepared the public, in a measure, for 
Jenner's more valuable process, that of vaccination, which, instead 
of being an amelioration, was a prevention. He met with vexa- 
tious and discouraging opposition, certainly, but whether his final 
success would have been as speedy or as complete had not Lady 
Mary battled with similar prejudices before him, may very well 
be matter of doubt. 

The quarrel of Lady Montagu with Pope was the next promi- 
nent event in her life. The poet had sought for a time to render 
her the one bright feature in the society which thronged his villa. 
Upon the accession of George II., her political sentiments attract- 
ed her towards Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Hervey, while 
Pope's proclivities drew him towards Bolingbroke and Swift. He 
had noticed too, with jealous dissatisfaction, that the preeminent 
position which he had wished her to hold, through his patronage 
and as an effect of his public and acknowledged admiration, she 
had obtained, and was able to maintain, by her own merits and 
as a tribute to her genius and humanity. Illiberal and malicious 
by nature, the great poet could not brook this competition, and 
levelled all his sarcasm, both in conversation and in verse, at the 
brilliant and independent beauty. She retorted vigorously, and 
the town was divided by their quarrel into two hostile and 
aggressive parties. Pope's invectives often passed the limits of 
propriety, and when called upon to explain or retract, he suc- 
ceeded by adroit prevarication in evading every direct charge. 
Warburton, Warton and Dr. Johnson concur in condemning his 
conduct, the former, his most zealous panegyrist, confessing that 
"there were allegations against him which he was not quite clear 
of." The present age, knowing little of the bard of Twickenham 
but through the works which he has consigned to immortality, 
cannot readily conceive to what excesses of malignity he allowed 
himself to be carried in this affair. But, as one of the biographers 
of Lady Montagu has aptly remarked, " time has annihilated their 



402 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

animosities, and the controversy may now be dispassionately 
viewed. How much a character may suffer under the authority 
of a great name ! The magic of Pope's numbers makes ua 
unwilling to know that they were not always the vehicle of 
truth." 

The life of Lady Mary, from this period till the year 1739, 
offers few salient points worthy of biographical notice. She 
revolved in the circles of fashion and literature, her influence 
naturally attracting about her the best authors of the day. She 
suggested an alteration in the fourth act of Young's "Brothers," 
which he readily made ; another which she advised proved im- 
practicable, and Young requested her to make a secret of the 
flaw, that he might try an experiment on the sagacity of the 
town ; adding, that the players were fond of it, and " si populus 
vult decipi, decipiatur." She was always a sincere friend to 
Fielding, her cousin, who dedicated to her his first comedy of 
" Love in Several Masks." 

In 1739, her health seriously declined, though her disease, 
cancer, was in its incipient stages. She resolved to visit Italy, 
and bade a long adieu to her daughter, by marriage Lady Bute, 
and to her husband, who promised to rejoin her, but whom she 
never met again. She abandoned without regret the gay and 
absorbing scenes of a London fashionable life. She travelled for 
several years through France, Italy and Switzerland, consenting 
in 1743, to meet her reprobate son, under a feigned name, at 
Yalence in France. This young man was already notorious as one 
of the most eccentric, dissipated and worthless of British subjects. 
He had requested the interview for the purpose of inducing his 
mother, if possible, to persuade her husband to settle his estate 
upon him — this being optional with the father, by his refusal to 
entail his property, on the ground, as he had himself expressed 
it, that his eldest son might be either a spendthrift, an idiot, or a 
villain. The event showed the wisdom of his conduct, as these 
three characteristics were combined in happy proportions in 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 403 

young Mr. Montagu's character. He left his mother, promising 
amendment and an economical life, and immediately repaired 
to Montelimar, " where he behaved himself with as much 
vanity and indiscretion as ever." 

Having been invited to visit Louvere, on the banks of Lake 
Isco, in the Venetian territory, she fixed her summer residence 
there, taking possession of a deserted palace, laying out a garden, 
and devoti ag herself to the avocations and pleasures of a country 
life. She superintended her vineyards, and was happy in the 
society of bees and silkworms. Her daughter sent her constant 
supplies of books from London, to read all of which she said 
it would be necessary for her to hire relays of eyes like pos- 
tillions. The letters written during this period to the Countess 
of Bute, exhibit her character in the most a gr c cable light, and 
while they show that she sincerely enjoyed her retirement 
from the world, prove how closely domestic ties still bound 
her to society, and that affection for her daughter and her 
family was still the dearest sentiment of her heart. Her passion 
for reading, and the extent to which she indulged it, drew upon 
her the mild reproaches of the countess, to which she made the 
following reply : 

11 Daughter ! daughter ! don't call names ; you are always 
abusing my pleasures, which is what no mortal will bear. 
Trash, lumber, sad stuff, are the titles you give to my favorite 
amusement. "We have all our playthings ; happy are they 
who can be contented with those they can obtain. Those hours 
are spent in the wisest manner that can easiest shade the ills of 
life, and are the least productive of ill consequences. The active 
scenes are over at my age. I indulge with all the art I can, my 
taste for reading. If I would confine it to valuable books, they 
are almost as rare as valuable men. I must be content with 
what I can find. As I approach a second childhood, I endeavor 
to enter into the pleasures of it. Your youngest son is perhaps 
at this very moment riding on a poker, with great delight, not at 



404 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

all regretting that it is not a gold one, and much less wishing it 
an Arabian horse, which he could not know how to manage. I 
am reading an idle tale without wit or truth in it, and am very 
glad it is not metaphysics to puzzle my judgment, or history 
to mislead my opinion. He fortifies his health by exercise ; 
I calm my cares by oblivion. The methods may appear low to 
busy people ; but if he improves his strength, and I forget 
my infirmities, we both attain very desirable ends." 

In 1758, Lady Montagu abandoned her solitude and estab- 
lished herself at Yenice. She here saw a great deal of company, 
receiving such persons as she believed visited her out of curiosity 
merely, in a mask and domino, as her dress of ceremony. She 
became indifferent to her personal appearance, and wrote thus of 
her looks : "I know nothing about the matter, as it is now 
eleven years since I have seen my figure in a glass, and the 
last reflection I saw there was so disagreeable, that I resolved to 
spare myself the mortification in future ;" adding, in regard to 
her health, "It is so often impaired, that I begin to be as weary 
of it as mending old lace ; when it is patched in one place, it 
breaks out in another." Upon the death of Mr. Wortley, in 
1761, she returned to England, at the urgent solicitation of her 
daughter, after an absence of twenty-two years. Her health had 
already seriously declined, and the progress of her disease was 
violently accelerated by this abrupt change of climate. She died 
on the 21st of August, 1762, in the seventy-third year of her age, 
remembered and lamented by such of her own generation as 
survived her, but little known to a city from which her long 
residence abroad had totally estranged her. 

The first publication of her letters took place the following 
year under very singular circumstances. She had employed a 
portion of her leisure during the latter years of her life in 
making copies of the letters she had written during Mr. Wortley's 
embassy, in two quarto volumes. While travelling to England, 
in 1761, she gave these books to a clergyman at Rotterdam 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 405 

named Sowden, to be disposed of as he thought proper. Upon 
the death of Lady Montagu, her son-in-law, the Earl of 
Bute, bought them from Mr. Sowden for the sum of £500, and 
had them transferred to London. No sooner was this done, 

however, than three volumes of "Letters of Lady M y 

W y M u," appeared, published by Beckett and edited 

by the notorious Captain Cleland. Mr. Sowden, being applied 
to for an explanation, stated that some weeks before he parted 
with the manuscripts, two English gentlemen had visited him 
and obtained his permission to look over the volumes. He was 
called away during their stay, and on his return found that both 
books and visitors had disappeared. The manuscripts were 
returned the next day, with profuse apologies on the part of 
the gentlemen, who made sundry awkward attempts to account 
for their mysterious conduct. The subsequent publication of the 
letters convinced Mr. Sowden and Lord Bute that the intervening 
night had been spent by an army of amanuenses in transcribing 
the contents of the volumes at the expense of Mr. Beckett. 

In spite of the questionable shape in which they were thus 
given to the public, no one doubted their authenticity. Smollett, 
then proprietor and conductor of the Critical Review, thus bears 
testimony to their merit : " The publication of these letters will 
be an immortal monument to the memory of Lady M. W. M., and 
will shew, as long as the English language endures, the sprightli- 
ness of her wit, the solidity of her judgment, the elegance of her 
taste, and the excellence of her real character. These letters are 
so bewitchingly entertaining, that we defy the most phlegmatic 
man on earth to read one without going through with them, or 
after finishing the third volume, not to wish there were twenty 
more of them.' 7 Lady Mary herself seems to have held a similar 
opinion at an early date, and indeed to have anticipated publi- 
cation, for she wrote thus in 1724 to Lady Mar: " The last 
pleasure that fell in my way was Madame de Sevigne"s letters ; 
very pretty they are, but I assert without the least vanity mine 



406 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

will be full as entertaining forty years hence. I advise you, 
therefore, to put none of them to the use of waste-paper." 
Other more complete editions have since been published, under 
the auspices of Lady Mary's relatives. Her letters have taken 
their place in English literature as models of epistolary compo- 
sition, and it would be difficult to decide in what branch of 
her delightful art the writer most excelled, whether in lively 
descriptions, in natural and familiar similes, in the happy 
employment of anecdotes, in the philosophy of her reflections, 
or in the idiomatic graces of her style. 

Lady Wortley Montagu has received justice as a writer, 
not as a benefactress. At least she has been denied that sort 
of justice which consists in burial honors and in the tribute of a 
national monument. Westminster Abbey has opened its massive 
portals to less worthy occupants than she, and for her least 
merit she might have claimed a resting-place in the Poets' 
Corner. The cathedral at Lichfield contains the only cenotaph 
to her memory, and this does not stand over her remains. It 
was erected, thirty years after her death, by a woman, Henrietta 
Inge, who seems to have been alone in the desire to acknowledge 
a debt, due not only from England but from the human race. 
The monument represents Beauty, in female form, weeping over 
the ashes of her preserver, inurned beneath her. To appreciate 
the force of this conceit, the reader must transport himself, 
in imagination, to the period when beauty, health, life, were 
at the mercy of that virulent scourge, the small pox, when no 
prevention was known and when cure was a matter of chance, 
not of calculation ; when a young and delicate woman of less 
than thirty years, struggling against the prejudices of centuries, 
the superstitions of a credulous age, and the resistance of the 
pulpit and the faculty, and finally triumphant over them, con- 
ferred upon Western Europe the greatest medical and social 
boon which it had then been given to man or woman to bestow 
upon their race. 



MARIE ANTOINETTE 



Marie-Antoinette- Josephe-Jeanne, Archduchess of Austria, 
daughter of Francis I. and Maria Theresa, Emperor and Empress 
of Germany, was born at Yienna, on the second of November, 
1755. She received a brilliant though superficial education un- 
der the eyes of her illustrious mother ; every opportunity was 
taken to impress upon her infant mind an adequate idea of the 
superiority of herself and her sister archduchesses to the off- 
spring of every other royal house. She was apt and zealous, 
and made rapid progress in the study of languages, of drawing 
and of music. At the early age of fourteen years, Marie Antoi- 
nette was an accomplished and majestic princess. She was slight 
and graceful, and of imposing bearing ; her lofty manner of car- 
rying her head at once attracted the observer. Her hair was 
light brown, long and silky ; her forehead high and somewhat 
projecting ; her nose aquiline, with nostrils dilating at the least 
emotion ; her eyes were blue and penetrating ; her teeth white, 
and her lips full and well-defined. Her expression was animated, 
though her smile was pensive. Her complexion was of dazzling 
purity, and her skin so white that, in her portraits still to be 
seen at Schoenbrunn, it seems to cast a shade on the satin of her 

royal vestments. 

26 407 



408 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

The relations of Austria and France had long beei. those 
either of open warfare or secret enmity. Since the time of 
Henry IY., every battle fought and every treaty signed be- 
tween these two powers, had deprived Austria either of a 
contiguous province or a tributary kingdom, and by these suc- 
cessive losses either France, or some one of her allies, had 
profited. Maria Theresa, viewing with alarm this decline of 
Austrian influence, formed the astute plan of converting her 
dangerous neighbor into a complaisant ally ; and the treaties 
of 1756 and '58, uniting the two powers in one scheme of 
operations, permitted Austria to commence, unopposed, a series 
of devastations in the north of Europe. Not long afterwards, 
an alliance between the houses of Bourbon and of Austria, 
seeming to subserve the interests of both courts, was agreed 
upon, and Marie Antoinette was contracted to Louis, grandson 
of Louis XY., and dauphin, by the death of his father, the 
Duke de Berry. 

A change at once took place in the occupations of the 
archduchess. She was placed under the immediate care of 
the Abbe de Yermond, a worldly-minded ecclesiastic, who in- 
structed her in the usages of the French court and the collo- 
quial idioms of the language. He is also believed to have 
fully acquainted her with the laxity of French morals, and 
with the liberty which had been and still might be enjoyed 
by queens residing in the French metropolis. Maria The- 
resa likewise gave her long lectures upon political and in- 
ternational topics, advising her in her choice of companions, 
and dictating to her the attitude she should assume in her 
double character of Archduchess of Austria and Queen of 
France. That she earnestly desired her daughter to become 
a bond of union between the two powers, it would be idle 
to doubt or deny ; but that she hoped to make of an im- 
pressible girl of fifteen years, an instrument of treason fatal 
to France and to him who would so shortly ascend the throne, 



MAEIE ANTOINETTE. 4 00 

is ueith-p; probable nor possible. It is certain, however, that 
Marie Antoinette manifested sufficient interest in the fortunes 
of her country to deserve, in a measure, the contemptuous epi- 
thet of Autrichienne which her French subjects soon bestowed 
upon her. 

Marie Antoinette left her home early in April, 1770. The 
streets of Yienna, through which her route lay, were thronged 
with men and women anxious to extend to her their parting be- 
nediction. As she passed, her cheeks were seen to be bathed in 
tears, while she covered her eyes with her handkerchief or her 
hands. From time to time she leaned out of her carriage, to 
take one last look at the home which she could not expect soon 
to revisit, and which inexorable fate had decreed she should 
never more behold. 

She arrived at Compiegne, in France, on the 14th of the 
month ; she was there received by the whole royal family, and 
presented by Louis XY. himself to the dauphin, her betrothed t 
on the 16th her marriage took place at Yersailles. Twenty mil- 
lions of francs were spent in festivities and public rejoicings. 
The bouquet, with which the pyrotechnic display concluded, was 
formed of thirty thousand rockets, and the colored lamps with 
which the gardens of the palace were illuminated, were counted 
by hundreds of thousands. 

The city of Paris celebrated the nuptials of the prince a fort- 
night later, on the 30th of April. An exhibition of fireworks was 
given upon the Place Louis XY., and here, in the midst of disor- 
ders occasioned by the negligence of the police, and by the ob- 
struction of one of the principal outlets by masses of building 
stone, an indiscriminate massacre of unoffending persons took 
place at the hands of assassins believed to have been paid by 
parties opposed to the alliance. Twelve hundred men, women 
and children were either slain or wounded. Marie Antoinette 
wept when she learned the extent of the calamity j the Parisians 
shrugged their shoulders, and contented themselves with saying 



410 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

that a reign thus inauspiciously commenced could not be hap- 
pily consummated. 

The character of Marie Antoinette furnished a happy con- 
trast, not to say a compensating balance to that of the dauphin ; 
her character, so to speak, completed his. While he was grave, 
retiring and contemplative, she was fond of gaiety, of the plea- 
sures derived from intimacy and social intercourse, of music 
and dancing. She drew him gently from his solitude into the 
amusements and frivolities of the palace, and sought to render 
him more at home in the midst of a court so shortly to be- 
come his own. She succeeded in gaining the affection of the 
king, and adroitly avoided giving offence to Madame Dubarry, 
the favorite. She cherished a hearty detestation of the se- 
vere exactions of court formality, and never failed to throw 
them off when an opportunity occurred, to the indescribable 
horror of the Duchess of Noailles, the most rigid martinet 
of the kingdom, and to whom Marie Antoinette had given the 
name of "Madame Etiquette." She set the regulations of this 
functionary at defiance, and affected the manners of a pri- 
vate lady to a degree which, in a court so ceremonious, could 
not fail to excite remark. She would chase butterflies in the 
park in a manner anything but regal, and would drop in to 
dine with the younger sons of the king without having been 
invited. On one occasion, while enjoying the relaxation of a 
warm bath, she sent for a venerable priest, and questioned him 
with deep interest upon the situation and requirements of his 
parish. The alarmed ecclesiastic endeavored to break from 
the room upon beholding the lady's extraordinary plight, but 
the dauphiness compelled him to remain a sufficient length 
of time for the escapade to become public, and thus reach the 
ears of Madame Etiquette. 

Marie Antoinette dressed with taste, danced with unusual 
grace, and was passionately fond of masked balls by moonlight. 
Her delight in this last amusement, and the extent to which she 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 411 

profited by the freedom it afforded, produced their natural re- 
sult — her character was assailed, and she was very soon regarded 
as an apt pupil in a dissolute and abandoned school. One of the 
most remarkable of these balls was given by M. de Fleury, am- 
bassador of Malta. His chateau and grounds were converted, for 
the occasion, into the Hades and Heaven of mythology. The 
guests first crossed the Styx, which was a temporary river con- 
taining one thousand pailsful of water, and embanked by wooden 
dykes. They were ferried across by a pantomimist from the 
opera, who seems to have borrowed the manners of Corydon 
rather than of Charon, with such exquisite grace and bland con- 
descension did he discharge his duties as boatman. Farther on 
was a Phlegethon of spirits of wine ; a tun of that inflammable de- 
coction was burned upon its bosom, while a score of masked and 
yelling devils danced upon its borders, to the din of gongs and 
other utensils of pandemonium. Beyond lay the Elysian Fields, 
a glowing expanse of flowers and illuminations. Tables laden 
with viands and potables, more solid than nectar and ambrosia, 
reminded the guests that their appetites were not those of disem- 
bodied shades. Groves, dark and labyrinthian, invited the me- 
ditative to contemplation and retrospection. The gossip of the 
day alleged that they were otherwise employed, and the fact that 
the meditators invariably went in couples may perhaps be cited 
in support of the allegation. Marie Antoinette was so delighted 
with this feature of the entertainment that she commanded the 
ambassador to give a second — an order with which he reluctantly 
complied, as the first had cost him forty thousand francs. 

On the 10th of May, 1774, Marie Antoinette became Queen 
of France. Louis XV. died at Versailles during a storm which 
shook the stately palace to its foundations ; and it was in the 
midst of a commotion of the elements such as neither she nor the 
young king had ever beheld, that they passed from their happy 
condition of irresponsibility to that weight of care which their 
early years were now summoned to support. 



412 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

The accession of Louis XVI. , of whom it was said that " h> 
the midst of a corrupt court, he had led an incorrupt life ; in the 
midst of irreligion and atheism, had preserved a pure and 
enlightened devotion ; who was personally economical in the 
midst of unbridled luxury," was hailed with acclamation. The 
country was loaded with oppressive taxes and ravaged by 
infidelity and licentiousness, the fruit of a long and infamous 
reign. The hope entertained by all classes that the new king 
would take measures to remove these evils, was expressed 
in the surname popularly given to him — le Desire ; but as this 
title implied a reproach upon his predecessor, he declined accept- 
ing it. He applied himself diligently to redress the grievances 
of the nation. One of his first acts was to exempt his people 
from the tax known as that of " happy accession' 7 — the tax 
which we have already mentioned as exacted by Francis I. in 
favor of his mother, and by Henry II. in behalf of his mistress. 
Marie Antoinette likewise signalized her advent to the throne 
by a general amnesty of those who had offended her. To the 
Marquis of Pontecoulant, Major of the Life-guards, who, recol- 
lecting her declaration that she would never forget one of his 
epigrams at her expense, was preparing to hand in his resig- 
nation, she said: " The queen cannot remember the quarrels of 
the dauphiness, and I now request that the Marquis of Ponte- 
coulant will no longer recollect what I have blotted from my 
memory." Following the example of the king, she renounced 
the tax known as the " Queen's belt," as it was one which bore 
heavily upon the laboring classes. One of the court poets thus 
made the sacrifice the theme of a graceful compliment : 

" Renounce, fair queen, your noblest due? 
Renounce the bless'd, the regal zone? 
Yet, what imports this belt to you — 
Since that of Yenus is your own ?" 

Marie Antoinette soon interested herself in the political 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 413 

affairs of the nation, and made her influence especially felt in 
the dismissal and appointment of ministers. The Duke d'Aiguil- 
lon, who held the two portfolios of War and of Foreign Affairs, 
and who had been the creature of Mme. Dubarry, shared the 
fate of the favorite ; exile was the portion of both. The other 
ministers were succeeded by men more worthy of the confidence 
of the nation. This general rotation in office was termed the 
St. Bartholomew of the Cabinet; "not," however, according to 
a popular epigram, "a massacre of the innocent." The queen 
petitioned the king for a palace which should be exclusively her 
own, and " where she might do as she liked." He gave her the 
Petit Trianon at Versailles, as one peculiarly suitable to her, 
11 as it had always been the country seat of the favorites of the 
kings." She accepted the gift on condition that his majesty 
would never visit it unless invited. Its name was changed to 
" le Petit Yienne" — one of the numerous cases in which Marie 
Antoinette merited her invidious sobriquet of Autrichienne. 
Here she amused herself by dressing in white muslin, and enact- 
ing the dairymaid in a thatched cottage erected for the purpose. 
That which appeared a cottage, however, proved, upon a nearer 
inspection, to be a sumptuous ball-room. 

The demeanor of the queen towards the ladies of the royal 
family was neither prudent nor praiseworthy. She took from 
the dowager aunts their prerogative of doing the honors of 
the court, and left them at liberty to withdraw to Bellevue and 
Meudon, like veterans invalided in the service. She offended 
likewise her royal sisters-in-law, by affecting to look down 
upon them not only from the throne which she tenanted as 
queen, but from the steps of that throne which she occupied 
as archduchess. Domestic discord and mutual recriminations 
flowed naturally from these hostile pretensions. The more seri- 
ous portion of the court, thus led to combine for mutual sup- 
port, formed, imperceptibly, a germ of opposition ; while the 
queen, collecting about her the younger and more thoughtless 



414 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

members of her society, spent her time in the frivolities and — 
it would be vain to deny it — in the excesses which characterized 
the epoch. All her amusements were of a sort that lowered her 
in the public estimation. 

Marie Antoinette gave birth, on the 20th of December, 1778, 
to a princess, who was christened Marie-Therese-Charlotte. The 
king disguised his chagrin at the sex of the infant, and the court 
and the city rejoiced over the auspicious event. The queen kept 
her room on New Year's Day, and amused herself, in company 
with the king's younger brother, the Count d'Artois — after- 
wards Charles X. — in classing the ladies of her society according 
to a sliding scale of beauty. The list was divided into seven 
categories or columns, at the head of which were the following 
descriptive adjectives : Beautiful, Pretty, Passable, Plain, Ugly, 
Hideous, Abominable. The queen was the only tenant of the 
column of the Beautiful ; two of her favorites were alone judged 
worthy to figure in the category of the Pretty ; while all the rest 
were indiscriminately huddled together under the contumelious 
designations of the Hideous and Abominable. 

The queen, upon her restoration to health, conceived a vio- 
lent fancy for an interdicted and unqueenly amusement — the 
private performances of the Montansier Theatre at Versailles. 
These were of a character so gross that they were never ex- 
hibited before the public proper, but took place at a late hour, 
after the regular audience had been dismissed. Marie Antoinette 
stole noiselessly from her bedroom, and, meeting her brother-in- 
law d'Artois, repaired to the forbidden rendezvous. One night, 
on returning to the palace in a carriage driven by the young 
prince himself, she found the gates closed and all access pro- 
hibited. "What!" exclaimed the royal coachman to the sentinel, 
''don't you know me, fellow?" "I do, your royal highness," 
was the reply, "but my orders leave me no discretion whatever." 
"Do you know me?" said the queen, appearing at the carriage 
window. "Certainly, your majesty; but you cannot pass this 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 415 

gate." "Send for the captain of the guards," she returned, 
indignantly. That functionary made his appearance, but reite- 
rated the declaration of his subordinate. The queen implored 
and his royal highness menaced ; finally, she wept and he swore. 
The two truants succeeded at last in making their entrance 
through a remote and unguarded passage-way. Marie Antoi- 
nette groped her way to her room, and went to bed in the dark. 
She appeared before the king the next morning : " Sire, I have 
come to learn whether I am to be a prisoner in my own palace, 
and if I am to be again exposed to the humiliation of not being 
able to return when I please." "Madame," retorted the monarch, 
" I am the master of my own house ; and when I have gone to 
bed, I presume that the household generally have followed my 
example." Having delivered this rebuke, he left the room, 
without giving the queen time to reply. 

Her majesty continued, during this period big with future 
events — the period in which Washington, Franklin, Lafayette, 
made their names familiar and immortal — an existence of frivo- 
lity which has, perhaps, never been equalled upon a European 
throne. She spent her mornings, during the winter of 1780, in 
attending the exercises of her illustrious brother d'Artois upon 
the tight rope. His highness was extremely ambitious of rival- 
ing his professor, Placide, and took daily lessons at the Petit 
Vienne, clad in knit tights, a spangled waistcoat, and a crimson 
girdle fringed with gold. The queen, with a select circle of 
ladies, applauded his elevations, his distortions, and his somer- 
sets. In the evening, she gambled or danced. She even made 
a histrionic attempt in an exhibition of amateur theatricals, 
and endured the indignity of being violently hissed by her royal 
husband, while performing the character of the Marquise de 
Clainville, in La Gageure ImpreVue. After this expression of 
opinion, Louis XVI. walked out of the theatre, adding a supple- 
mentary criticism in the form of a sustained and well modulated 
yawn. 



416 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

The death of Maria Theresa imposed a temporary cheek upon 
the levities of the court of Versailles. The queen lamented in 
secret and in silence the loss of the empress her mother, while 
ine palace assumed, with evident distaste, the emblems of an 
uncongenial mourning. The more ostentatious amusements of 
the royal circle were laid aside, but this unwilling deprivation 
was largely compensated for by the renewed zest with which 
they indulged their passion for the gaming table. 

On the 25th of October, 1785, Marie Antoinette gave birth 
to a son — the wretched martyr Louis XVII. The king aban- 
doned himself to the most extravagant joy, taking the heir to 
the throne in his arms, and speaking of him and to him as 
Monseigneur and Monsieur le Dauphin. The king's brother, 
Monsieur de Provence, who was next in the line of succession, 
probably felt, for he certainly manifested, some little chagrin at 
this tardy continuation of the direct male line. Could he have 
lifted the veil of futurity, however, he would have seen how 
little the dauphin, that child of calamity, was to interfere with 
the rights he had learned to consider inalienable from himself. 

In the same year occurred the terrible affair of the queen's 
necklace. " Watch closely that miserable intrigue of the neck- 
lace," said Talleyrand, at this time a very young man, but thus 
early giving proof of his infallible perspicacity ; " I should not be 
at all surprised if it overturned the throne." From the records 
of the trial of Cardinal de Rohan, one of the implicated parties, 
before the parliament of Paris, we derive the following narrative, 
which must be considered as the official version of the intrigue. 

Messieurs Bohmer and Bossanges, jewellers, were the posses- 
sors of a diamond necklace valued at one million six hundred 
thousand francs. They caused it to be offered to the queen 
at that price ; her majesty ardently desired its purchase, but 
the king would not consent to so extravagant an application 
of the royal resources. In the household of the queen was a 
certain Madame de Lamotte, a woman of abandoned character, 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 417 

and the wife of a man equally notorious. These worthy peo- 
ple conceived the idea of obtaining the necklace for them- 
selves, and in the execution of their scheme did not hesitate 
to involve both the cardinal and the queen. They discovered 
in the streets of Paris a young woman named Leguay d'Oliva, 
whose resemblance to Marie Antoinette had struck them as 
remarkable They easily induced her to lend them her aid, 
though it appeared that she was far from comprehending the 
full extent of her complicity. They dressed her in magnifi- 
cent garments, ensconced her in an arbor in the park of Ver- 
sailles, with directions to deliver a rose and a letter with which 
they furnished her into the hands of a nobleman who would 
accost her at the stroke of midnight. She was also to whis- 
per in his ear, as she gave him the letter, ' ' You know what 
it means." The meeting took place ; the Cardinal de Rohan 
— the nobleman in question — received instructions to negotiate 
for the purchase of the diamonds by the queen, and M'lle 
Leguay, having received from Madame de Lamotte one third 
part of the fifteen thousand francs promised her for her par- 
ticipation in the transaction, withdrew to Brussels, where she 
resided up to the period of her arrest. 

The cardinal, supposing that his instructions relative to the 
diamonds came from the queen herself, had an interview with 
the jewellers, from whom he obtained the necklace, promising 
payment in the queen's name, and himself signing notes for the 
full amount, payable at various dates. He then gave the neck- 
lace to Madame de Lamotte, to be by her transmitted to the 
royal purchaser. The cardinal's notes were not paid at matu- 
rity, and the jewellers, in their alarm, at once applied to the 
queen. She pleaded entire ignorance of the whole affair, which 
soon reached the ears of the king. The cardinal, M'lle Le- 
guay and Madame de Lamotte were arrested and tried before 
the parliament of Paris. The substance of the argument of 
the cardinal's advocate was, that the Lamottes sold them in 



418 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

detached lots for their own account. The cardinal and M'lk 
Leguay were acquitted of fraud, though the former was con- 
demned to pay the one million six hundred thousand francs : 
Madame de Lamotte was sentenced to be whipped in the 
public streets, to be branded upon both shoulders, and to spend 
the rest of her life in the hospital of la Salpetriere. 

This, as has been said, was the turn given to the affair 
by the argument presented in behalf of the cardinal. It did 
not, however, convince the public, a large portion of whom 
chose to consider both the queen and de Rohan as implicated 
to the full extent of their apparent complicity. The episode 
of M'lle Leguay was looked upon as an adroit device, invented 
by the king himself to save the credit of his guilty wife, and 
to divert the gathering storm of indignation. In this point of 
view, the necklace was really placed in the hands of Marie 
Antoinette, the cardinal depending upon her for the means of 
redeeming his obligations. Whether it was that Calonne, the 
minister of finance and Marie Antoinette's creature, was un- 
able to supply such sums from the treasury without excit- 
ing suspicion, or whether the queen imagined that the jewel- 
lers would grant a renewal to their royal debtor — the notes 
successively fell due and an exposure was threatened. At this 
juncture, it is supposed that her majesty gave the diamonds 
to Madame de Lamotte with instructions to restore them, and 
that the faithless confidant betrayed the trust. 

It matters little whether the queen was really a party to 
the transaction or not, the effect produced upon the public 
mind by a trial involving her name and compromising the 
throne would have been the same in either case. It was fore- 
seen that the trial would end in establishing the queen's in- 
nocence, and that a scapegoat would be selected to bear the 
brunt of the outraged public sentiment. The harrowing details 
of Madame de Lamotte's punishment shocked the Parisians 
and kindled fresh disgust for Marie Antoinette. The necklace 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 419 

remained a rankling and festering thorn in the conscience 
of the nation, till it galled them into the high fever of revo- 
lution. Talleyrand was right when he coupled the fall of 
the monarchy and the diamonds of the queen. Madame de 
Lamotte, after an incarceration of nearly a year, effected her 
escape and sought refuge in London. An ambassador sent 
by Marie Antoinette to treat with her for the purchase of a 
compromising document in her possession, succeeded, after an 
anxious and difficult negotiation, in obtaining, for the sum of 
one hundred thousand francs, a manuscript history of the affair, 
written by Madame de Lamotte herself, which, however, she af- 
terwards published in full. Although the queen's previous 
conduct justified the French people in their assumption of her 
guilt in this unhappy affair, many weighty circumstances con- 
spire to relieve her of any share in it whatever. The cardinal 
and Marie Antoinette had long been enemies, and he was pro- 
bably the last person in France whom she would have made 
her accomplice in a dangerous intrigue of this nature. The 
jewellers, it may be added, were never indemnified for the 
diamonds which they placed in the grand almoner's hands ; and 
the heirs of the jewellers and the representatives of the car- 
dinal are still, in this present year, 1858, engaged in litigation 
before the imperial courts. 

The espousal by France of the cause of American Independ- 
ence and the consequent war with England, terminating in the 
Peace of Versailles, in 1783, added to the internal difficulties 
of the country, by increasing the public debt. The queen was 
popularly regarded as the cause of the embarrassments of the 
treasury, and she received, in consequence, the odious sobriquet 
of Madame Deficit. The public discontent was augmenting 
rapidly, while a taste for republican principles had been dis- 
seminated by the result of the struggle in America, and by the 
persuasive advocacy of Rousseau. There seemed to be but 
one method left of procuring the means necessary for carrying 



420 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

on the government. This was to make the landed property 
of the clergy and nobles bear its due share of the national 
expenses — a tax from which it had hitherto been exempt. The 
Notables were convened in 1787 to discuss this delicate point ; 
they were dismissed the same year, after an ineffectual attempt 
to resolve the question. Calonne, and his successor, Brienne, 
successively resigned. Necker was recalled ; the king, by this 
step, completely throwing himself, to the great dissatisfaction of 
the queen, into the arms of the popular party. 

By the advice of the new minister of finance, the States- 
General, a body composed of the representatives of the three 
estates of the kingdom, the clergy, the nobles and the people, 
were summoned to meet on the 1st of May, 1789. The deputies 
of the third estate soon acquired the ascendency, and, declaring 
themselves the sovereign legislators of the kingdom, assumed 
the title of National Assembly. The king, instead of pursuing 
a course of conciliation, chose, in deference to the advice of 
Marie Antoinette, to take two steps which, more than any other, 
hastened the course of the revolution. He proceeded to collect 
masses of troops in the vicinity of Paris and Versailles, in the 
hope of overawing the assembly ; and then dismissed from the 
public service the only man — Necker — whom the people judged 
worthy, at this juncture, to hold office. Paris at once burst into 
flame ; dense and turbulent masses of people thronged the 
streets, the enemies of the queen and court assuming the tri- 
colored cockade as their badge. The soldiers refused to fire upon 
them, and the army, fraternizing with the citizens, formed the 
famous militia known as the National Guard, choosing Lafayette 
for their general. The Bastille was taken on the 14th of July, 
1789 ; and then commenced the flight of the nobles, disguised 
under the apologetic designation of "emigration." The royal 
family, consisting of the king and queen, their daughter, born in 
1778, their son, the dauphin, born in 1785, one of the king's 
brothers, Monsieur, and his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, were 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 421 

left at Versailles to stem the torrent alone. Marie Antoinette 
wrote the most pressing letters to the absentees : " if you love 
your king, your religion, your government, your country, 
return ! return ! ! return ! ! . !" But these appeals were unavail- 
ing, and the deserted queen, who had so ill borne prosperity, and 
who had been the frivolous occupant of a dissolute throne, 
entered that phase of her career in which she was to become 
a heroine in adversity, an example in history, and a saint in 
martyrdom. 

The National Assembly, having usurped the legislative 
power, proceeded with zeal in the reformation of abuses. 
Louis XYI. virtually abdicated his divine right, and with his 
family remained at Versailles. Early in October, a report was 
circulated in Paris that the king was preparing to retire to 
Metz, there to negotiate for the suppression of the Assembly 
by the intervention of foreign arms. A turbulent multitude 
at once rushed to the Hotel de Yille, clamoring for what they 
declared the two great necessaries of life, Bread and Blood. To 
proceed immediately to Versailles and prevent the king's depar- 
ture, and even to force him to return with them to Paris, was 
the determination at once adopted. The scene that followed 
was one of the most frightful and yet grotesque of the revolution. 
Men with faces blackened at the forge, their red sleeves rolled 
up to their elbows, armed with muskets pillaged from the 
Bastille or with rich Damascus blades stolen from the armorers, 
fish-women, decked in all their finery of yellow-washed chains 
and tawdry lace caps, women of infamous life, seated astride 
of cannons, their dishevelled hair entwined with branches 
plucked from the public gardens, their breath noisome with 
liquor and foul with oaths, — the whole ribald mass singing, 
shouting, cursing, laughing, dancing, stopping at every tavern 
to tipple, and recruiting tributary swarms at every corner — 
rushed along the quays and through the suburban town of Sevres 
to the verdant and smiling lawns of Versailles. The king. 



422 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

returning from the chase, met the forerunners of the hideous 
assemblage. They were prevented, however, by the speedy 
arrival of the National Guard, under Lafayette, from proceeding 
to extremities that night. The king, distracted by opposing 
counsels, urged the queen to fly. She replied that nothing 
should induce her, in such an extremity, to separate from her 
husband. "I am the daughter of Maria Theresa," she said, 
11 and though I know that they seek my life, I have learned not 
to fear death." 

The rabble bivouacked in the park of the chateau. At six 
o'clock in the morning a furious mob besieged the avenues to 
the palace, and a gate being opened by persons bribed to betray 
their trust, rushed into the vestibules and antichambers of the 
royal apartments. Two members of the body guard freely gave 
up their lives in defence of the threshold confided to their 
vigilance. The queen escaped in the garments in which she had 
slept, treading the floor with unslippered and noiseless feet. 
The mob burst in, and found the bed still warm. In their rage 
and disappointment, they pierced it with their bayonets. 

The body guard remained firm in its allegiance to the royal 
family. Fifteen of their number were taken, and the two who 
had been slain were decapitated, their bloody heads being im- 
paled upon pikes and carried in triumph through the streets of 
Versailles. Three others, with the halter already about their 
necks, were saved by the intercession of the king, who appeared 
upon the balcony, and, with trembling lips and faltering voice, 
promised to return to Paris that day, there to reside for the 
future. The queen, regardless of danger to herself, likewise 
appeared upon the balcony, with her son and daughter. The 
mob, bent upon trying her courage to the utmost, and intuitively 
sensible of the comfort she must derive from the presence of hei 
children, determined she should come forth alone. A terrific 
shout rent the air: "Away with the children! the queen! the 
queen alone!" Marie Antoinette withdrew for an instant, placed 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 423 

her children in the king's arms, and then reappeared upon the 
balcony unattended. Though expecting instant death, she was 
serene and fearless. This noble contempt of personal danger 
filled the fierce spectators with admiration ; a deafening cry of 
"Yive la Heine !" succeeded to the mutinous bacchanal, and 
for a moment the revolution was arrested. 

These events had transpired at an early hour in the morning ; 
at noon, the royal party and their esccrt set out for Paris. The 
horrible multitude, now elated by triumph and maddened by the 
sight of blood, accompanied them on their way. The heads of 
the two slaughtered guardsmen, elevated aloft and borne in 
front of the procession, served as the banners of the motley 
army. A ragged urchin stood on each step of the carriage of 
the queen. Upon the cannon, dragged as before by the popu- 
lace, sat the same abandoned women, yet more dishevelled and 
riotous than ever, from the effects of their bivouac in the park. 
Oaths, obscene jests, unearthly yells, mingled with revolutionary 
lyrics, drunken calls to arms, and frantic rigadoons, were the 
sights and the sounds which met the eye and the ear of the 
shrinking queen during the seven long hours that the journey 
lasted. Loaves of bread, stuck upon the points of lances, were 
waved on high, as the emblems of that plenty which the king's 
return was expected to produce. "Hurrah for the baker!' 7 
shouted the crowd, referring to the king; " hurrah for the 
baker's wife and the little apprentice !" they added, thus desig- 
nating the queen and the dauphin. At last they reached the 
Tuileries, once a palace, now a prison. For a century, it had 
been uninhabited, having been abandoned for Marly, Versailles 
and St. Cloud. The miserable captives, shivering with cold and 
faint with hunger, found neither fire nor food within its cheerless 
walls ; they slept that night upon couches hastily prepared in 
the basement. 

Marie Antoinette now passed two years of misery. Sur- 
rounded by spies, reminded by daily experience that the walls 
27 



424 MARIE ANTOINETTE 

had ears, unable to take the air except in the garden of the 
palace, and then subject to insult from a brutal populace, the 
unhappy queen devoted herself to the education of her children, 
Marie-Th6rese and Charles-Louis. She was often in peril of 
assassination at the hands of her own guards. But her character 
was purified and elevated by these trials, and she redeemed the 
levity of her youth by her fortitude under affliction. 

The threats of the people and the tyranny of the Assembly 
became at length so outrageous, that the king resolved to seek 
safety in flight. The Marquis de Bouillee, military commander 
at Montm6di, in the province of Lorraine, was still devoted to 
the royal family, and the province under his command was yet 
faithful to its sovereign. A plan of escape was formed, a large 
portion of the details being intrusted to the cautious and skillful 
management of the queen herself. Bouillee formed a camp at 
Montmedi of the most steadfast of his troops, upon the pretext 
of attempting a military movement on the frontier. Detach- 
ments were posted along the route the fugitives were to follow, 
the suspicions of the people being lulled by the explanation that 
they were to protect the passage of a convoy of military stores 
expected from Paris. The passport of a Russian lady about to 
leave Paris with her family was procured for the use of the 
party. Madame de Tourzel, the governess of the royal children, 
was disguised as the Russian ladjr, the dauphin and his sister 
as her two daughters, Marie Antoinette as their governess, and 
the king and the Princess Elizabeth as their attendants. On the 
night of the 20th of June, 1791, the whole party made their 
escape, without attracting notice, from the Tuileries. A carriage 
was waiting for them at a short distance, and this they succeeded 
in reaching. They passed the barrier-gate in safety, and were 
soon upon the high road to Chalons. The dauphin, too young to 
comprehend the danger, fell asleep at his mother's feet. The 
spirits of the travellers rose as they left Paris behind them 
and as they approached, on the third day, the scene of their. 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 425 

anticipated rescue, they relaxed their precautions, and became 
fatally confident of the happy issue of their scheme. 

An accident to the carriage had delayed them somewhat, 
and had deranged the carefully calculated time table of their 
progress. The courier who was to precede them three hours, 
was, on the third day, but five minutes in advance, the whole 
party being four hours behind hand. This caused the scouts 
awaiting them at an appointed station to suppose their flight 
had been prevented, and as their own movements were exciting 
suspicion, they reluctantly withdrew. They had hardly departed 
when the royal carriage arrived. Its occupants were thus thrown 
into the utmost perplexity and dismay ; they kept on, however, 
and arrived without molestation at Chalons. Here the king 
was recognized in spite of his disguise ; those who made the 
discovery, however, had the humanity to keep the secret. The 
next station was Ste. Menehould, and here the relay master, a 
man named Drouet, who had been to Paris the year before and 
had seen the king, was struck by the resemblance of the Russian 
lady's servant to his majesty. Not being convinced, however, 
he compared his features with the engraving of the royal head 
upon a fresh issue of assignats, several of which he had lately 
received. Doubting no longer, he made a hasty survey of the 
other travellers ; he successively discovered the queen, the 
dauphin, and the Princess Elizabeth. Fearing to give the alarm, 
lest an attempt to capture them might be baffled by the assist- 
ance of the royal troops which he doubted not were hanging 
about the town, he determined to precede them on their route 
and intercept them at the station of Yarennes. After the car- 
riage had started, he rode off upon a swift horse to sound the 
alarm. 

The royal party, not being expected at Yarennes, found 
neither horses nor troops in readiness. Drouet had ample time, 
therefore, to arouse the town. The road was barricaded and 
the carriage surrounded. The travellers were rudely seized, and 



426 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

compelled to alight j they were conducted close prisoners to 
the house of the mayor — a magistrate who varied his municipal 
functions by keeping a small variety store. His wife was moved 
to tears by the intercessions of Marie Antoinette, who exhausted 
all her powers of fascination ; but the woman, though deeply 
touched, replied that she could not befriend her without en- 
dangering her own life. The miserable fugitives were obliged 
to retrace their steps amid the barbarous insults of an infuri- 
ated mob. Two soldiers, who had sought to save the queen, 
were chained upon the outside of the carriage. Pitchforks and 
scythes were brandished about the heads of its occupants, and 
provincial functionaries assembled to utter maledictions upon 
their fallen sovereign. A nobleman, who lived upon the route, 
made his way through the rabble to kiss the king's hand ; 
the savages instantly tore him limb from limb. Two deputies, 
sent by the Assembly to meet the king and queen, joined them 
at Epernay. Barnave was so won by the dignity and resigna- 
tion of the queen that he ever afterwards supported her cause. 
Potion, his colleague, was coarse and brutal, and taking the 
dauphin upon his knees, twisted his hair till he cried. The 
queen snatched the boy away, saying : " Give me my son; he 
is accustomed to being treated tenderly, and does not relish 
such rudeness." The captives at last entered Paris ; the Na- 
tional Guard abstained from presenting arms, and the sullen and 
ominous silence of the crowd presaged the horrible catastrophe 
which was to close the fearful drama. 

The treatment of the prisoners was now worse thar before. 
They were strictly watched within the palace, and if they desired 
to breathe the fresh air, were compelled to do so before the hour 
fixed for opening the gates of the gardens to the public. Marie 
Antoinette slept with guards posted at her bedside, though sepa- 
rated from them by a glazed partition. One night, they entered 
her room and sat down upon her couch. Her blood, whether 
that of a French queen and an Austrian archduchess, or merely 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 427 

that of an outraged woman, must have boiled at this atro- 
cious indignity. Her hair now turned white, her eyes sank in 
their sockets, and the beautiful hoyden of the groves of Marly 
became, at the age of thirty-seven, a broken and hopeless in- 
valid. 

On the 20th of August, 1792, the Tuileries were attacked, 
the Swiss guard massacred, and the venerable palace sacked 
by a drunken mob. The Assembly hastily passed a decree, 
dethroning the king and overturning the monarchy. The whole 
royal family were present at this terrible session ; the dauphin 
sleeping in his mother's arms, his sister and Madame Elizabeth 
weeping piteously, whilst the king and queen retained, even 
in this extremity, the wonted dignity of their demeanor under 
affliction. The Temple, a gloomy building formerly occupied 
by the Knights Templars, was appointed by the Assembly for 
their residence, and upon the third day of their expulsion 
from the Tuileries they were established within its fatal walls. 

Their confinement was not irksome at the outset. They 
were allowed to spend their time together, and experienced 
a sad pleasure in the absence of care and their relief from re- 
sponsibility. Their faithful servant, C16ry, attended them. The 
king instructed the dauphin, his son, in the duties and virtues 
which would best ornament the throne. The queen and Ma- 
dame Elizabeth made the beds and swept the floors. They 
breakfasted at nine, and walked in the garden at one ; exposed, 
however, to the insulting jests of the officers of the watch. In 
the evening, they read aloud ; Racine and Corneille were the 
favorite authors of the ladies and children, the king preferring 
Hume's History of the English Rebellion, seeming to discover 
in the fate of Charles I. a melancholy foreshadowing of his 
own. The dauphin said his prayers to his mother at night, 
lowering his voice when the commissioners were near, that 
they might not hear him invoke, in behalf of his unhappy pa- 
rents, the aid of the Almighty against the National Convention, 



428 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

The municipality now redoubled their precautions. : The 
captives were deprived of the use of pen, ink and paper, that 
they might not communicate with the emigrants. Sewing * 
materials were next removed, lest they might serve as the 
means of correspondence. Their knives, scissors and bodkins 
were seized, that the prisoners might not scratch desperate 
appeals for aid upon crockery or glass. An old woman who had 
been appointed to assist them in the coarser duties of the house- 
hold, went crazy, and as she was proved to have lost her senses 
while in the service of the queen, Marie Antoinette was ordered 
to take charge of her. A teacup having been misplaced, the 
municipality .accused Madame Elizabeth of having stolen it. 

The king underwent his trial in January, 1793, and was 
condemned to death. He met his fate heroically on the 21st. 
The historian Mignet has given in a brief sentence the moral 
of this frightful tragedy: "Louis XYI. inherited a revolution 
from his ancestors. He perished the victim of passions which he 
had had no share in exciting ; of those of his supporters to which 
he was a stranger ; and of those of the multitude which he had 
done nothing to awaken. History will write, as his epitaph, that 
with more strength of mind, he would have been a sovereign 
without an equal." 

The execution was over at half-past ten ; and a band of 
assassins, singing a triumphal song beneath the windows of the 
Temple, first informed the queen of the accomplishment of the 
judicial murder. She fell upon her knees, and prayed that she 
might soon rejoin the martyr. The royal family were now 
treated with increased severity. They had no servant whatever, 
and performed for each other the duties of menials and hirelings. 
A plot for the deliverance of the queen was formed, but she 
refused to profit by the chances of escape it afforded. " What- 
ever pleasure it would give me to leave this place," she said, 
" I cannot consent to be separated from my son. I can feel 
no enjoyment without my children ; with them I can regret 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 429 

nothing. n Their food was now of the coarsest kind ; their 
clothing was rude and squalid. The few articles of furniture 
which had been allowed them were removed, and their pockets 
were searched for money. Eighty-four louis d'or, given by the 
Princess Lamballe to Madame Elizabeth, were taken from her. 
The jailers were allowed and even encouraged to taunt them 
with their misfortunes. 

But the inhumanity of the government was not yet exhausted. 
Marie Antoinette had been tortured as a wife, but was still 
capable of suffering in her feelings as a mother. On the 3d of 
July, the Convention ordered that the dauphin should be taken 
away and placed under the care of the infamous Simon, an agent 
of Robespierre. "What am I to do with the boy?" asked 
Simon ; " banish him ?" "No." " Kill him ?" " No." " Poison 
him?" "No." "What then?" "Get rid of him !" Marie 
Antoinette surrendered her son without resistance, beyond the 
unavailing remonstrance of tears. She recommended submission 
to him ; but for two days he refused to eat. His childish 
instinct told him he should never see his mother on earth again. 
But by his father's death, he knew he had become Louis XYII. 
of France, and, young as he was, he resolved to behave as 
became a king, though friendless, fatherless and forlorn. 

The broken-hearted queen was completely prostrated by this 
cruel separation. Her only consolation was to gaze through 
a crack in the wall, where she was allowed to stand, and watch 
her son, during his daily walk upon a remote tower of the 
prison. She was happily ignorant of the horrible treatment 
which he afterwards underwent, in furtherance of the infamous 
purpose of the government. He was kept in a state of abomi- 
nable filth, deprived of air, exercise and proper food. He was 
made to drink intoxicating liquors, and taught to sing blasphe- 
mous songs. His constitution was soon undermined, his body 
becoming diseased and his mind obtuse. The Convention 
resolved to hasten his death by subjecting him to the horrors 



430 MARIE A NTOINETTE. 

of solitary confinement. He was left alone in a huge and deso- 
late room, with no occupation by day and no light by night. 
His bed was not made for six months, and he wore the same 
shirt till it fell in rags from his back. Madame de Stael pleaded 
for him in vain. " Women of France,' 7 she wrote, " I appeal to 
you ; your empire is over, if ferocity continues to reign ; your 
destiny is ended, if your tears do not prevail. Seek out the 
royal infant, who will perish if bereaved of his mother, from the 
unheard-of calamities which have befallen him." Death relieved 
the unfortunate prince in June, 1795. He had survived his 
mother two years. 

A month after her separation from her son, Marie Antoinette 
was removed by order of the Convention from the Temple to the 
Conciergerie. She was here confined, in the midst of thieves and 
cut- throats, in a damp and gloomy cell, watched day and night by 
an officer of police. Her only amusement was to knit a pair of 
garters from the ravellings of a bit of filthy carpet, using two 
goose quills for needles. She was indebted to the jailer and his 
wife for the clothes she wore, and even for the food she ate, for 
that which the government supplied was unfit, not merely for a 
queen, but for any human being. 

On the 15th of October, Marie Antoinette was conducted 
before the Revolutionary Tribunal — a body which has been aptly 
described as " a court of assassins and a jury of cannibals." The 
audience were little better, the hall having been packed with 
mercenaries of both sexes — the scum and dregs of the city. 
The queen was dressed in black ; her manner was dignified, 
even tranquil ; her features were ravaged by suffering, but 
nothing could alter the serene majesty of her demeanor. She 
had resolved, upon the first interrogatory which should be ad- 
dressed to her, to make the following reply : "I have no answer 
to make you. Assassinate me, as you did my husband." But 
upon second thought, she deemed it best to follow the example 
of the king, and to perish leaving her murderers without pretext 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 431 

and without excuse. Circumstances aided her in this resolve, 
and Marie Antoinette closed her career on earth with two of the 
most magnificent exhibitions of fortitude ever given to a woman 
to display. " The awful moment will live forever," says her 
foster-brother Weber, "when Marie Antoinette, flushed with 
indignation, made her assassins turn pale in their tribunals, and 
extorted shouts of admiration from the wretches hired to insult 
her." 

Fouquier Tinville, thv public accuser, had drawn up the act 
of arraignment. It shows the embarrassment under which he 
had labored ; he had been directed to denounce without proof, 
and in endeavoring to obey this order, he betrayed the weakness 
of his cause ; his murderous instincts had abandoned him in 
presence of his queenly victim. He opened the court by asking 
the prisoner her name. "Marie Antoinette of Lorraine," she 
replied, "late Archduchess of Austria." "Your rank?" "Dowa- 
ger of Louis XVI., late king of France." "Your age?" "Thirty- 
eight years." The accusation was then read. It described Marie 
Antoinette, the widow of Capet, as having been, like FrSdegonde 
and Brunehaut, the blood-sucker of the French, and charged 
her with having embezzled, in connection with Calonne, many 
millions of French money ; with having sent a portion of it to 
her brother the Emperor of Germany, and thus enabled him to 
make war upon the republic. After these capital charges, came 
others, either puerile or atrocious : she had chewed bullets, said 
the act, for the Swiss guard ; she had been an unnatural mother ; 
she had worn too many shoes ; she had carried pistols in her 
pockets ; she had forestalled the markets and monopolized the 
necessaries of life ; and empty bottles had been found under her 
bed. In support of these charges, the public accuser produced 
a pair of scissors, some needles and thread, and a lock of the 
king's hair. He concluded by declaring that the French people 
had been too long the victim of the infernal machinations of this 
modern Medicis ; and while invoking a speedy retaliation for her 



432 MARIE ANTOIN ETTE. 

crimes, hoped that justice would be tempered by conscience and 
humanity. 

The trial lasted nearly twenty-four hours, during which 
the august victim obtained hardly one moment of repose. It 
was the object of her judges to break down her mental powers 
and means of resistance by reducing her physical strength : they 
gave her insufficient food, and when, during the heat of the 
discussion, she asked for water, and a compassionate gendarme, 
upon her second request, gave her a glass, he was severely 
reprimanded, and even lost his place. The defenders of the 
queen, Chauveau-Lagarde and Troncon-Ducoudray, filled their 
dangerous office with zeal and courage, convinced, however, of 
the uselessness of their endeavors. 

The case was committed to the jury at four in the morning 
of the 16th of the month ; after an hour of seeming deliberation, 
they returned a unanimous verdict of guilty. The president, 
Hermann, asked the queen if she had anything to say before 
judgment was pronounced. "Without condescending to answer, 
she signified by a motion of her head that she had not. The 
sentence was then read. Marie Antoinette, unmoved and un- 
daunted, turned to Ducoudray, and, placing two gold rings and 
a lock of hair in his hand, desired him to give them to the 
surviving members of her family. She was conducted back to 
her prison, the drums everywhere beating to arms, to assemble 
the forces which were to occupy the streets leading to the 
scaffold. She now wrote in her cell the memorable and touch- 
ing letter to Madame Elizabeth, which that unfortunate Tady. 
was never destined to read. She then threw herself upon her 
pallet, and covering her feet with a blanket, slept tranquil/} fci 
two hours. 

She was disturbed at seven o'clock by the entrv^e of a 
constitutional or republican priest, who bore ar o/<Vi for ad- 
mission from the Revolutionary Tribunal. The y.vjn declined 
accepting his services. He persisted, saying, ' Your death is 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 433 

soon to expiate" — "My errors," interrupted the queen, "not 
my crimes !" The priest's manner became more respectful, 
though he refused to leave her, as he said, till the axe had 
done its work. Marie Antoinette now cut off her hair with 
her own hands, and, arrayed in white, she awaited the fatal 
hour. At eleven o'clock, the executioner and his assistants 
burst into the dungeon. The queen's hands were bound be- 
hind her back, and she was placed, with the executioner and 
the priest, in an open cart. She was denied the privilege 
which had been accorded to the king, of proceeding to the 
scaffold in a closed vehicle. Her last wish, as she had just 
written to Madame Elizabeth, was to meet her fate with the 
same fortitude that her husband had shown; she gathered all 
her strength, and perhaps was never so truly majestic as in 
this closing scene. As the dismal procession started, the priest 
said to her, " Courage, madame ! now is the time for courage !" 
"Courage!" she replied, "I have shown it for years; think 
you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to 
end?" 

The National Guard lined each side of the route, which was 
purposely extended, and lay through the most populous quar- 
ters of the city. For two long hours did the cart continue to 
advance. The multitude gave vent to their savage joy in oaths, 
jests and songs, and even taunted the queen with the epithets, 
V Fr6d6gonde !" " Medicis !" " Messalina !" As she passed 
the church of St. Roch, the spectators who crowded the steps 
insisted upon stopping the vehicle, that they might have a 
better and longer view of the victim ; but the patience and 
resignation of Marie Antoinette were exhausted, and shrugging 
her shoulders and muttering the words " vile wretches " be- 
tween her teeth, she turned her back upon them. The scaf- 
fold was erected upon the spot which, nine months before, 
had been moistened with royal blood. As she approached it, a 
few tears fell from her eyes upon her knees. The daughter 



434 MARIE ANTOINETTE 

of the Caesars ascended the steps with unshaken courage 
" Adieu, once again, my children," she said, "I go to join 
your father." She met her fate as became a queen and the 
daughter of Maria Theresa. The body was buried beside that 
of the king, and consumed with quick lime. The bones were 
transferred to St. Denis twenty years later, upon the resto- 
ration of the Bourbon dynasty, and expiatory chapels were 
built in unavailing atonement for a crime, the memory of which 
neither time nor regrets can ever efface. 

" Thus died," says Lamartine, " this queen, frivolous in pros- 
perity, sublime in misfortune, intrepid upon the scaffold ; the idol 
of the court, and afterwards the personal enemy of the Revolu- 
tion. This Revolution the queen neither foresaw, nor under- 
stood, nor accepted ; she rather irritated and feared it. The peo- 
ple unjustly cast upon her all the hatred with which they perse- 
cuted the ancient regime. They attached to her name all the 
scandal and treason of the court. Rendered omnipotent with 
her husband by her beauty and her wit, she invested him with 
her unpopularity, and dragged him by her love, to destruction. 
The charming and dangerous favorite of an antiquated, rather 
than the queen of a new monarchy, she had neither the prestige 
of ancient royalty — respect ; nor that of a new reign — popularity ; 
she only knew how to fascinate, to mislead, and to die." 

" The manners of the queen," says Alison, " accelerated the 
Revolution ; her foreign descent exasperated the public discon- 
tent. If in early youth her indiscretion and familiarity were such 
as prudence must condemn, in later years her spirit and magna- 
nimity were such as justice must admire. She was more fitted 
for the storms of adversity than for the sunshine of prosperity. 
Years of misfortune quenched her spirit, but did not lessen her 
courage ; in the solitude of the Temple, she discharged, with ex- 
emplary fidelity, every duty to her husband and her children, 
and bore a reverse of fortune, unparalleled even in that age of 
calamity, with a heroism that never was surpassed." 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 435 

Thomas Jefferson has recorded an unfavorable opinion of 
Marie Antoinette, based upon personal observation. " This an- 
gel," he writes, " as gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of Burke, 
with some smartness of fancy, but no sound sense, was proud, 
disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, 
eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to 
her desires or perish in their wreck. Her inordinate gam- 
bling and dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois and 
others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaus- 
tion of the treasury, which called into action the reforming 
hand of the nation ; and her opposition to it, her inflexible 
perverseness and dauntless spirit, led herself to the guillo- 
tine, drew the king on with her, and plunged the world into 
crimes and calamities which will ever stain the pages of mo- 
dern history. I have ever believed, that had there been no 
queen, there would have been no revolution. I should have 
shut up the queen in a convent, putting harm out of her 
power, and placed the king in his station, investing him with 
limited powers, which, I verily believe, he would have honestly 
exercised, according to the measure of his understanding." 

The belief that had there been no queen, there would have 
been no revolution, was doubtless an opinion which Mr. Jeffer- 
son himself lived to modify. But that Marie Antoinette's in- 
fluence in the terrible scenes in which her destiny involved 
her, was to hasten, intensify and embitter a revolution which 
was in any case inevitable, there can be but little doubt. As 
a queen and the head of society, she has left an examp^ 
which it would be unsafe and immoral to follow ; as a wife, 
a mother and a woman, when, with the loss of her throne she 
fell from her high estate, her heroism, resignation and forti- 
tude were such as to endear her to the world, and to make 
her story memorable in all tongues and to all time. 



THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA 



The city of Saragossa unfurled the royal standard of the 
Bourbons early in the year 1808; Napoleon at once dispatched 
General Lefevre to reduce the rebellious capital. It was not 
in a situation to sustain a siege ; its defences consisted of an ill- 
constructed wall, twelve feet high and three broad, its continuity 
interrupted from time to time by a crumbling house, originally, 
perhaps, a fort or an arsenal, but now dilapidated by the effects 
of time and neglect. The neighboring churches, convents and 
public buildings were all in too ruinous a condition to be ser- 
viceable in repelling the assailants. The city was populous, con- 
taining fifty thousand inhabitants, but among them there were 
but two hundred and twenty regular soldiers ; and the entire 
artillery, when collected and prepared for action, consisted of 
sixteen old and inefficient cannon. A hill, called El Torrero 
overlooked the city at the distance of a mile, and upon this com- 
manding site the French planted a portion of their siege-train and 
batteries. 

They commenced their operations in a careless but confident 
manner, well aware of the slender resources of the city, and 
asserting that it was inhabited by priests, cowards and women. 
They did not dream that this city of cowards was to make the 

437 



438 THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. 

most desperate and heroic resistance known in the annals of 
warfare, and that from among the women of whom they thus 
lightly spoke, was to arise a deliverer for the Spaniards. For 
months the invaders were repulsed at each successive assault; 
the besieged endured every misery and made every sacrifice 
which it was possible for patriotism to suggest or heroism to 
achieve. On the second of June, a Saragossan, bribed by French 
gold, fired a powder magazine within the walls. The inhabi- 
tants, involved in the falling ruins, stunned and bewildered by 
the explosion and the conflagration that ensued, were paralyzed 
and powerless ; the French pushed their troops forward to 
the gates. A massacre rather than a battle followed ; the ram- 
parts were choked with dead bodies, and defence seemed no 
longer possible. 

"At this desperate moment," we are told, "an unknown 
maiden issued from the church of Nuestra Senora del Pilar, habit- 
ed in white raiment, a cross suspended from her neck, her dark 
hair dishevelled, and her eyes sparkling with supernatural lus- 
tre. She traversed the city with a bold and firm step ; she 
passed to the rampart, to the very spot where the enemy were 
pouring in to the assault ; she mounted to the breach, seized 
a lighted match from the hand of a dying engineer, and fired 
the piece of artillery he had failed to discharge. Then, kiss- 
ing her cross, she cried, ' Death or Yictory V and reloaded her 
cannon. Such a cry, such a vision, could hardly fail to awaken 
enthusiasm ; it seemed that heaven had brought aid to the 
just cause j her cry was answered — ' Yiva Agostina V and the 
French were driven back." 

Southey, in his " Peninsular War," gives the following de- 
scription of the same scene : " The sand bag battery before the 
gate was frequently destroyed, and as often reconstructed under 
the fire of the enemy. The carnage here throughout the day was 
dreadful Agostina Zaragoz, a handsome woman of the lower 
class, about twenty-two years of age, arrived at this battery with 



THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA 439. 

refreshments, at the time when not a man who defended it was 
left alive, so tremendous was the fire which the French kept up 
against it. For a moment the citizens hesitated to re-man the 
guns. Agostina sprang forward over the dead and dying, 
snatched a match from the hands of a dead artilleryman, and 
fired off a six-and-twenty pounder ; then jumping upon the gun, 
made a solemn vow never to quit it alive during the siege. The 
Zaragozans rushed into the battery ; the French were repulsed 
here and at all other points with great slaughter." 

General Lef evre, mortified at this reverse, resolved to reduce 
Saragossa by famine, while harassing it by bombardment from 
El Torrero. The horrors of these measures were somewhat alle- 
viated to the inhabitants by the intrepidity, omnipresence and 
benevolence of Agostina. She visited and tended the wounded, 
encountering every species of danger to rescue men and women 
from tumbling walls or exploding bombs. She supplied food to 
the sick and starving. But in the meantime, the French had, 
step by step, rendered themselves masters of half the city, and 
Lef evre, confident that the hour of triumph had arrived, sent to 
Palafox, the Spanish general, the following laconic summons to 
surrender: " Head-Quarters, Santa Engracia : Capitulation." Pa- 
lafox received this dispatch in public, and turning to Agostina, 
who stood near, asked her what answer he should return. Mak- 
ing her words his own, he replied with equal laconicism: " Head- 
Quarters, Zaragoza : War to the knife." Nothing in the history 
of war, says the writer whom we have quoted, has ever been 
recorded to resemble the consequences of this refusal to sur- 
render. One row of houses in a street would be occupied by the 
Spanish, the opposite row by the, French. A continual tempest 
of balls rent the air ; the town was a volcano ; the most revolt- 
ing butchery was carried on for eleven days and eleven nights. 
Every street, every house, was disputed with musket and poig- 
nard. Agostina sped from rank to rank, everywhere taking the 

most active part. The French were gradually driven back, and 

28 



'440 THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. 

the dawn of -the 17th of August saw them relinquish their long- 
disputed prey and take the road to Pampeluna. 

" Saragossa," says Wordsworth, in his Convention of Cintra, 
"has exemplified a melancholy, yea, a dismal truth, yet consola- 
tory and full of joy, that when a people are called suddenly to 
fight for their liberty and are sorely pressed upon, their best 
field of battle is the floors upon which their children have played ; 
the chambers where the family of each man has slept ; upon or 
under the roofs by which they have been sheltered ; in the gar- 
dens of their recreation ; in the street or in the market-place ; 
before the altars of their temples, and among their congregated 
dwellings, blazing or uprooted." 

Palafox, after rendering proper funeral honors to the com- 
batants who had perished, endeavored to recompense the few 
who survived. He bade Agostina choose her own reward, pro- 
mising, in the name of the city, that her request, whatever it 
might be, should be cheerfully granted. She modestly asked 
to retain the rank she had usurped, that of an engineer of artil- 
lery. She was at once made a sub-lieutenant, and was authorized 
to wear the arms of Saragossa. She was known thenceforward 
as Agostina Zaragoz, or the Maid of Saragossa. 

In November of the same year, the siege was renewed by 
the French under Marshals Moncey and Mortier. The place was 
invested, all the outworks were carried, and a furious bombard- 
ment ensued. The besieged fought with desperate valor, Agos- 
tina now tending the wounded, and now aiding in manning the 
batteries. She took her former station at the Portillo, with the 
same cannon she had served before ; and once said to Palafox, as 
he was passing, "See, General, I am with my old friend." She 
frequently headed assaulting parties, sword or knife in hand. 
Though constantly exposed, she was never wounded. She was 
once, however, nearly suffocated by being thrown into a ditch 
and covered with bodies of the dead and dying. The general 
assault was made on the 27th of January, 1809, and the French 



THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. 441 

established themselves in the breaches. "Long after the walls 
of Zaragoza fell, the city itself resisted. The stern contest was 
continued from street to street, and from house to house. In 
vault and cellar, on balcony and in chamber, the deadly warfare 
was waged without any intermission. By the slow and sure pro- 
cess of the mine the assailants worked their terrific path, and 
daily explosions told loudly of their onward way. Meantime the 
bombardment was fierce and constant, and the fighting incessant. 
Every house was a post ; the crash of falling buildings was con- 
tinual. While the struggle was yet fierce and alive, came pesti- 
lence into those vaults and cellars where the aged, and the 
women and the children, lay sheltered from the storm of shells. 
They sickened in vast numbers, and died where they lay. Thus 
fell Zaragoza, after a resistance of sixty-one days !" It capitulated 
in February, 1809. 

Agostina was taken prisoner by the French, and, having caught 
the infection already so fatal to her countrymen, was placed in 
the hospital. Not being expected to recover, little attention was 
paid to her. Feeling herself reviving, however, she disguised her 
symptoms of convalescence, and soon after effected her escape. 
She seems to have removed subsequently to Seville, and it was 
there that Lord Byron saw her, walking sedately upon the Ala- 
meda, or Prado, decked with the orders and medals bestowed 
upon her by the Junta. Nothing is known of her after life. She 
died in obscurity, in 1857, at the age of 71 years, and was buried 
with military honors. The stanzas in Childe Harold, in which 
Byron has commemorated her valor and immortalized her 
story, are so familiar that we should not quote them here, were 
it not for the fact that her negligent countrymen have left to 
foreigners the duty of chronicling her deeds, thus rendering the 
English poet, as it were, her sole biographer, and perhaps the 
only author, with the exception of Southey, in whose works her 
memory will live. The verses, too splendid ever to become 
hackneyed, are as follows : 



4i2 THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. 

" Is it for this the Spanish maid, arous'd, 
Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, 
And, all unsex'd. the anlace hath espous'd, 
Sung the loud song and dar'd the deed of war ? 
And she whom once the semblance of a scar 
Appall'd, an owlet's 'larum chill'd with dread, 
Now views the column-scattering bay'net jar, 
The falchion flash, and o'er the yet warm dead 
Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might quake to tread i 

"Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale, 
Oh! had you known her in her softer hour — 
Mark'd her dark eye that mocks the coal-black veil — 
Heard her light, lively tones in lady's bower- 
Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power, 
Her fairy form, with more than female grace, — 
Scarce would you deem that Saragossa's tower 
Beheld her smile in danger's Gorgon face, 
Thin the closed ranks, and lead in Glory's fearful chase. 

"Her lover sinks — she sheds no ill-tim'd tear; 
Her chief is slain — she fills his fatal post; 
Her fellows flee — she checks their base career; 
The foe retires — she leads the rallying host; 
Who can appease like her a lover's ghost? 
Who can avenge so well a leader's fall? 
What maid retrieve when man's flush'd hope is lost? 
Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, 
Eoil'd by a woman's hand before a batter'd wall?" 

Bin the memory of the Spanish maid has not been perpet- 
uated in song alone. Wilkie has commemorated her glory upon 
canvas, and Mr. J. Bell in marble. The fine picture of "The 
Defence of Saragossa," by the former, painted in 1827, in 
Madrid, and afterwards engraved, contains, standing in con- 
spicuous positions, the figures both of Palafox and Agostina, and 
professes to give their portraits. That of the latter, however, is 
doubtless somewhat idealized. The statue by Mr. Bell, which 
was exhibited at the British Academy in 1853, represents the 
leroine standing on the ramparts ; a cannon-ball has just killed a 



THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. 443 

priest — the ecclesiastics having shared nobly in the defence of the 
place — from whose dying hand she has snatched a crucifix, which 
she holds up to incite the people to further resistance ; in her 
other hand is a lighted fusee, with which she is about to fire a 
cannon. At the base of the figure is the spirited answer which 
she dictated to Palafox — Guerra al cuchillo. 

To Englishmen alone is the Maid of Saragossa indebted for 
the preservation of her honorable renown — to Southey, Byron, 
Wilkie and Bell. The silence of the French is easily explained ; 
the indifference of the Spanish, though it may be accounted for. 
is nevertheless to be deplored. Researches made at the request 
of the author of these pages in the libraries of Madrid, 1 reveal 
the singular fact that no authentic record of her history or devo- 
tion has been preserved in the Spanish language — a fact suggestive 
to those who may have an opinion yet to form upon the state of 
Spanish literature and upon the vitality of Spanish patriotism. 

1 By his Excellency Don Calderon de la Barca, Gayangos, and General San-Koman. 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSOtf. 



It is with unfeigned satisfaction that we yield to the dictation 
of the chronological progression to which our plan confines us, 
and cross the ocean westward in quest of the next subject for our 
gallery. True, we have once done so already ; but it was at 
a summons less gratifying than that which now constrains us 
Having sketched, in rapid succession, the lives of the Assyrian 
queen, the Roman matron, the Grecian wife ; the Spanish 
sovereign, the French peasant, the English benefactress ; the 
Indian princess, the Scottish martyr, the Spanish heroine ; we 
turn with unaffected pleasure to the inspiring life of the American 
missionary, whose most affecting story we have now to chronicle, 
pursuing its wondrous vicissitudes from the school-house of 
Massachusetts to the jungles of Rangoon. 

Anne Hasseltine was born in the village of Bradford, Mas- 
sachusetts, on the 22d of December, 1789. Of her infancy we 
know nothing, and but little of her youth. At the age when her 
character began to develop itself, she manifested great activity 
of mind, a lively and restless disposition, and an eager relish for 
amusement and recreation. With all this, she was fond of books 
and was an assiduous student. She was educated at the 
Academy of her native town. Here she first displayed those 

445 



446 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

qualities which so distinguished her in later life — strength of 
mind, precision of thought, and indefatigable perseverance. 
Her memory was retentive, her disposition ardent, her resolu- 
tion unconquerable. Her schoolmates regarded her as their 
superior, while her preceptors believed her destined to attain 
unusual excellence, and perhaps achieve some enviable renown. 

The momentous change in her character which led her 
towards the path in life she ultimately chose, took place in her 
fifteenth year. She was then engaged in a round of the pleasures 
natural to her age, in frequent attendance at balls and assemblies, 
and neglecting even the commonest duties of that religion in 
which she had been brought up. A casual glance at a book 
upon female education, in which the terrible denunciation, " She 
that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth," was the first 
sentence which met her eye, amazed her by the applicability of 
the passage to herself. She became serious and made good 
resolutions for the future. But an invitation to a First of 
January ball drove her scruples from her mind, and she was one 
of the gayest of the party who danced the New Year in. Her 
conscience reproached her, but she quieted the officious monitor 
by the reflection that as she had broken her resolutions, it was 
evident she could not keep them, and that therefore it was 
useless to make others. During the first four months of 1806, 
according to her own account, she scarcely spent a rational hour. 
The time set apart for study was spent in preparing the even- 
ing's toilet and in devising games and frolics of which she was 
to be the heroine and the queen. Her gaiety so far surpassed 
that of her friends, as to suggest a vague apprehension that she 
had but a short time in which to pursue her career of folly, and 
would be suddenly cut off. 

A revival of religion now drew the attention of the village to 
serious affairs. Miss Hasseltine attended a course of conference 
meetings, and under their influence, realized the importance 
of leading a religious life. She lost all relish for amusement. 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 447 

became melancholy and dejected, and often wept in secret over 
her deplorable condition. She felt that she was led captive by 
Satan at his will. She sought counsel at the hands of her 
preceptor, and received from him encouragement to persevere. 
Her conversion seems to have been an arduous one, her soul 
often rising in rebellion, and, as she deemed, her worldly aspira- 
tions requiring the mortification of the flesh by a rigidly sparing 
diet. She shut herself up in her room and longed for annihila- 
tion ; could she have destroyed the existence of her soul with as 
much ease as that of her body, she asserts that she should 
quickly have done it. But she was not long left in this distress- 
ing state. Her prayers were at length answered ; her pride was 
humbled in the dust, and in sorrow and contrition she laid her 
soul at the feet of Christ, pleading his merits alone as the ground 
of her acceptance. This beneficent change was thorough and 
permanent. She at once entered zealously upon the duties 
of religion, and with the exception of one or two fluctuations in 
the ardor of her devotion, due to her natural susceptibility and 
to her extreme youth, she never gave her friends reason to 
reproach her with indifference, though she often accused herself 
of unfaithfulness and hardness of heart. She publicly professed 
herself a disciple of Christ, in September, 1806, becoming a 
member of the Congregational church in Bradford. "I am 
20W," she wrote in her journal, "renewedly bound to keep His 
commandments and walk in His steps. Oh, may this solemn cove- 
nant never be broken !" 

The following passage, written upon her seventeenth birth- 
day, is remarkable, not only as a clear and concise statement of 
her feelings on that anniversary, but as a specimen of her powers 
of composition: " Dec. 22 — I am this day seventeen years old. 
What an important year has the past been to me ! Either I have 
been made, through the mercy of God, a partaker of divine 
grace, or I have been fatally deceiving myself, and building upon 
a sandy foundation. Either I have, in sincerity and truth, 



448 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

renounced the vanities of this world, and entered the narrow path 
which leads to life, or I have been refraining from them for a 
time only, to turn again and relish them more than ever. God 
grant that the latter may never be my unhappy case ! Though 1 
feel myself to be full of sin and destitute of all strength to 
persevere, yet if I know anything, I do desire to lead a life of 
strict religion, to enjoy the presence of God and honor the cause 
to which I have professedly devoted myself. I do not desire my 
portion in this world. I find more real enjoyment in contrition 
for sin, excited by a view of the adorable moral perfections of 
God, than in all earthly joys. I find more solid happiness in one 
evening meeting, where divine truths are impressed upon my 
heart by the divine influences of the Holy Spirit, than I ever 
enjoyed in all the balls and assemblies I have attended during the 
seventeen years of my fife. Thus, when I compare my present 
views of divine things with what they were, at this time last year, 
I cannot but hope I am a new creature, and have begun to live a 
uew life." 

Early in the following year, yielding to the request of several 
of her townsmen and to her own desire to be useful to others, 
she took charge of a few scholars. She opened the first day's 
exercises with prayer, " astonishing the little creatures by such a 
beginning, as probably some of them had never heard a prayei 
before." She was thus engaged, at intervals, in various towns, 
at Salem, Haverhill, Newbury. Though always anxious to en- 
lighten the minds and form the manners of her pupils, her first 
desire was to plant in their infant souls the seeds of a religious 
life, and this portion of her duty she executed with the zeal and 
fidelity of one who must give an account of her stewardship. 

In the month of June, 1810, a general association of the 
Congregationalist clergymen of Massachusetts was held at Brad- 
ford. A paper, urging the importance of establishing, in the 
United States, a mission to the heathen, and signed by four 
young clergymen anxious personally to engage in the arduous 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 449 

work, Adoniram Judson, Samuel Nott, Samuel J. Mills, and 
Samuel Newell, was presented to the association. A special 
committee, directed to report upon the document, recognized 
the imperative obligation and importance of missions, and sug 
gested the appointment of a board of commissioners for foreign 
missions, for the purpose of devising the ways and means of 
promoting the spread of the Gospel in heathen lands. Mr. 
Judson made the acquaintance of Miss Hasseltine during the 
session of the association, and soon afterwards made her an offer 
of marriage, including, of course, a proposition to accompany 
him upon the mission to India to which he expected to be 
speedily appointed. 

Miss Hasseltine felt deeply the difficulty and delicacy of her 
situation. On the one hand, her affection for her parents, the 
ties of home and country, the general opposition of public 
opinion to the enlistment of women in the missionary cause- 
one universally deemed wild and romantic and altogether in- 
consistent with prudence — and her natural hesitation to assume 
an office so responsible, combined to deter her from accept- 
ing the commission ; while, on the other, her attachment to 
Mr. Judson, her desire to follow his fortunes whatever they 
might be, her adventurous and intrepid spirit, all operated to 
; nduce her to consent. The question of duty was independenl 
of these considerations, and she gave it a long and prayerful 
consideration. "An opportunity has been presented to me," 
she writes in her journal, " of spending my days among the 
heathen, in attempting to persuade them to receive the Gospel. 
Were I convinced of its being a call from God, and that it would 
be more pleasing to Him for me to spend my life in this way 
than in any other, I think I should be willing to relinquish every 
earthly object, and in full view of dangers and hardships, give 
myself up to the great work." In October, she wrote thus : "I 
have at length come to the conclusion that if nothing in Provi- 
dence appears to prevent, I must spend my days in a heathen 



450 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

land I am a creature of God, and He has an undoubted right 
to do with me as seemeth good in His sight. Jesus is faithful : 
His promises are precious. Were it not for these considerations, 
I should, with my present prospects, sink down in despair, 
especially as no female has to my knowledge ever left the shores 
of America to spend her life among the heathen ; nor do I yet 
know that I shall have a single female companion. But God is 
my witness that I have not dared to decline the offer that has 
been made me, though so many are ready to call it a wild, 
romantic undertaking. If I have been deceived in thinking it 
my duty to go to the heathen, I humbly pray that I may be 
undeceived and prevented from going. But whether I spend 
my days in India or America, I desire to spend them in the 
service of God, and be prepared to pass an eternity in His 
presence." 

Miss Hasseltine 's determination was strongly disapproved by 
many whose opinions she had been accustomed to respect. Some 
doubted her capacity, some criticised her motives. "I hear," 
said a 1 ady whose conscience was evidently under easy control, 
"that Anne Hasseltine is going to India. What for, may I ask?" 
"Because she thinks it her duty," was the reply; "would not 
you go, if you thought it your duty?" "Perhaps I might," 
responded the lady, " but then I should not think it my duty." 

The consent of Mr. and Mrs. Hasseltine was now to be 
obtained. The letter of Mr. Judson to them upon this subject 
is, perhaps, the most remarkable application ever addressed to 
parents in reference to parting with a beloved daughter. After 
stating that he had been referred by her to them, he proceeds 
thus : "I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with 
your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this 
world ; whether you can consent to her departure for a heathen 
land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a 
missionary life ; whether you can consent to her exposure to the 
dangers of the ocean ; to the fatal influence of the southern 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 451 

climate of India ; to every kind of want and distress ; to degrada- 
tion, insult, persecution, and, perhaps, a violent death ? Can you 
consent to all this for the sake of Him who left His heavenly 
home, and died for her and for you ; for the sake of perishing 
immortal souls ; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God ?" 

It has been truly said that a man capable of writing thus, 
under such circumstances, could be actuated by none of the 
ordinary motives which govern human actions, and that a father 
giving up a daughter to such an alliance and such a destiny, could 
be moved by no impulse inferior to the constraining love of 
Christ. In fact, nine-tenths of mankind are totally incompetent 
to appreciate, or even to comprehend, the sacrifices and submission 
of the Hasseltines, parents and daughter, in this painful con 
juncture. 

The Board of Commissioners met at Worcester in September, 
1811, and Mr. Judson and several others earnestly solicited an 
immediate appointment. Notwithstanding the insufficiency of its 
funds, the Board resolved to establish a mission in Birmah, and 
accordingly commissioned Mr. Judson and four of his associates. 
The marriage of Mr. Judson and Miss Hasseltine took place in the 
Congregational church of Bradford, on the 5th of February, 1812. 
The next day, Mr. Judson and his partners in the enterprise 
were ordained as missionaries in the Tabernacle church in Sa- 
lem ; and on the 19th of the same month, Mr. and Mrs. Judson 
and Mr. and Mrs. Newell sailed from Salem, in the brig Caravan, 
for Calcutta. " America 1" exclaims the departing exile, " my 
native land, must I leave thee ! Must I leave thee, Bradford, my 
dear native town ! Must I leave my parents, my sisters and 
brothers, my friends beloved and all the scenes of my early 
youth ! Yes, I must leave you all, for a heathen land, an uncon- 
genial clime. Farewell, happy, happy home, but never, no, 
never to be forgotten !" 

It may be well to state here the reason why Mrs. Judson is 
regarded as the first American female missionary, notwithstanding 



452 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

the fact that Mrs. Newell accompanied her. It is that Mrs. Jud- 
son resolved to devote herself to the cause at a period earlier than 
that at which Mrs. Newell came to a similar determination. Mrs. 
Ne well's journal shows this ; after mentioning Anne Hasseltine's 
resolve, she wrote : " How did this news affect my heart ! Is she 
willing to do all this for God ; and shall I refuse to lend my little 
aid, in a land where divine revelation has shed its clearest rays ? 
Great God, direct me, and make me in some way beneficial to 
immortal souls !" We shall have occasion to mention, incident- 
ally, the dispensation which rendered Harriet Newell the proto- 
martyr of American missions. 

The passage was attended by no incidents other than those 
usual in a voyage to the tropics. The 27th of February having 
been appointed by the well-wishers of the mission on land as a 
day of fasting and prayer for its prosperity, the day was kept as 
such by the missionaries at sea. The captain, a young man, 
placed all the resources of the ship unreservedly at their disposal. 
Divine service was held regularly in the cabin on Sundays. Out 
of deference, perhaps, to the character and errand of their passen- 
gers, the officers and seamen refrained from the use of profane 
language. The sudden change of the climate as the vessel 
approached the torrid zone, produced a debilitating effect upon 
the health and spirits of Mrs. Judson. Want of exercise was 
assigned as the direct cause of this depression, and jumping the 
rope suggested as the most efficient cure. This animating remedy 
was tried with success, and during the remainder of the voyage 
Mrs. Judson enjoyed perfect and unremitting health. 

On the one hundred and twelfth day, the Caravan came in 
sight of land, the towering mountains of Golconda being just dis- 
cernible in the distance. The ship at last entered the river 
Hoogly, a branch of the Ganges. Here Mrs. Judson seems to 
have been truly enraptured at the lavish prodigality of nature. 
The tropical odor rising from the islands is described as fragrant 
oeyond description ; the palm groves, the bowers of mango trees, 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 453 

the Hindoo cottages built in the form of hay-stacks beneath over- 
shadowing trees, the brilliant green rice fields, the neat English 
country-seats, the indolent, half-clad natives — all these striking 
features of the land which she was now to call home, passed suc- 
cessively before her wondering gaze. On the 18th of June, the 
missionaries landed at Calcutta. They proceeded the next day 
to Serampore, fifteen miles up the river, the seat of the English 
mission, where they were invited to stay till their associates in 
the ship Harmony, now due from Philadelphia, should arrive. 
They were welcomed to India by the venerable Dr. Carey, then 
engaged in translating the Scriptures into the Bengalee dialect. 
The Serampore Baptist mission, under his care and that of 
Messrs. Marshman and Ward and their wives, was in as flourish- 
ing a state as the bare toleration afforded it by the East India 
Company would allow. 

Ten days after the arrival of the Caravan, Messrs. Judson and 
Newell were summoned to Calcutta and ordered to quit the 
country without delay. The government had resolved to permit 
no further extension of a system which had already taken deeper 
root than they desired. Yexatious as this order was, it was 
impossible to avoid compliance, and Mr. and Mrs. Newell sailed 
on the 1st of August for the Isle of France. As the vessel 
could accommodate but two passengers, Mr. and Mrs. Judson 
were allowed to remain two months longer in Calcutta. During 
this interval, they became convinced that their former sentiments 
upon the subject of Baptism were unscriptural, and after a long 
and conscientious examination of the subject, adopted Baptist 
principles and were baptized on the 6th of September, in the 
British chapel. This change of opinion greatly enhanced the 
difficulties of their situation. It sundered their connection with 
the Congregationalist Board upon which they were dependent, 
while it offered no guaranty that the Baptist societies at home 
which had yet made no provision for the maintenance of mission- 
aries, would decide to afford them aid. They were, moreover, 



454 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

undetermined in what locality to fix their permanent abode ; the) 
could not stay in Hindostan, and the Birman Empire, where they 
had originally intended to settle, was now the seat of war between 
the English and Birman governments. Should these difficulties 
be arranged, it was the desire of Mr. Judson to establish himself 
at Rangoon, the capital of a kingdom of seventeen millions of 
inhabitants, and where there was but one solitary missionary, Mr. 
Felix Carey. 

While they were deliberating, the Bengal government sent 
them a peremptory order to depart, and to embark on board a 
vessel bound to England. Preferring to follow Mr. and Mrs. 
Newell to the Isle of France, they found a captain just weighing 
anchor for that place, and courageous enough to give them pas- 
sage, though without a permit from the police. They embarked 
with Mr. Bice, who had arrived in the Harmony, at the dead of 
night, and dropped down the river for two days, when a govern- 
ment dispatch arrived, forbidding the pilot to proceed further, as 
passengers were on board who had been ordered to England. A 
succession of adventures now kept the missionaries in constant 
anxiety. On one occasion, Mrs. Judson was compelled to take a 
boat, rowed by six natives, and proceed in search of their bag- 
gage. The river was rough, the sun scorching hot, and Mrs. 
Judson entirely alone, in the midst of men who could administer 
no other comfort than might be contained in the words, ' ' Cutcha 
pho annah, sahib." The whirligig of time, which may reasonably 
be supposed to be a kaleidoscope capable of producing the most 
amazing combinations, has brought about few changes more 
striking than are embodied in the dissolving views of Mrs. Jud- 
son's career. The daughter of New England parents, the pupil 
and preceptress of a Massachusetts seminary, afloat, at the age of 
twenty-three years, upon a Hindoo river, in a Calcutta boat 
manned by Hoogly watermen, and proceeding in quest of baggage 
which the authorities might have confiscated or an alarmed cap- 
tain thrown overboard — such a picture of the vicissitudes of life 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 455 

certainly belongs to that volume which treats of the truth that 
is stranger than fiction. 

The police of Calcutta finally relented, and Mr. and Mrs. Jud- 
son and Mr. Rice were furnished with a pass to the Isle of France, 
on board the vessel they had quitted, the Creole. They em- 
barked, and prepared for a residence upon the island by studying 
the French language, which still prevailed there, notwithstanding 
its capture by the English. The few passengers besides them- 
selves proved totally uncongenial, and spent their Sundays in 
playing cards and chess on deck, while the missionaries held wor- 
ship in the cabin. Distressing news awaited them on their 
arrival ; Harriet Newell, who had given birth to an infant during 
her passage from Calcutta, had died shortly after reaching land. 
u O Death," writes Mrs. Judson, "could not this infant mis- 
sion be shielded from thy shafts !" Mrs. Newell had died happy 
and composed, the first American to perish in the discharge of 
what she felt to be a duty towards the heathen. She had received 
her physician's condemnation with uplifted hands, exclaiming: 
" 0, glorious intelligence I" Her remains were buried in a solitary 
patch of ground in the environs of Port Louis, and at a later 
period a monument was erected over her grave, by the American 
Board of Commissioners. 

Mr. Judson and Mr. Rice now endeavored to render them- 
selves useful in the land where accident had brought them — the 
former by preaching to the English garrison, the latter by conduct- 
ing worship in the hospital. Early in March, 1813, Mr. Rice sailed 
for the United States for the purpose of awakening an interest in 
foreign missions among the Baptist churches ; his success was 
such that in a little over a year, the Baptist General Convention 
was formed in Philadelphia. One of the first acts of this body 
was to appoint Mr. and Mrs. Judson as their missionaries, leaving 
it to them, however, to select the field of their labors. But 
long before this intelligence reached them, they had determined 

frk attempt a mission at Penang, a Malay island on the coast of 
29 



456 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

Malacca. Unable to procure a passage thither, they sailed in 
May for Madras. There, but one vessel, the Georgiana, was 
advertised as about to sail, and that one bound to Rangoon, 
whither it had been their intention to proceed when they first 
left America. They embarked on board of this vessel on the 22d 
of June. Mrs. Judson, knowing that there was not a single Euro- 
pean female in all Birmah, engaged an Englishwoman at Madras 
to accompany her. By a strange fatality, and as if Mrs. Judson 
was providentially destined to share alone with her husband the 
glories and perils of the Birman mission, this woman fell dead 
upon the deck as the vessel weighed anchor. 

They arrived in July, after a perilous passage. Nothing 
remained of the numerous English attempts to establish a mission 
at Rangoon, with the exception of the teak-wood mission house in 
the environs, then inhabited by Mrs. Carey, the native wife of the 
last incumbent of the station. Mrs. Judson was sick, and was 
carried, seated in an arm-chair, from the ship to the house, by 
four natives, who supported the chair by means of bamboo poles 
borne upon their shoulders. Mr. Judson walked by her side. 
On reaching the mission house, she was hospitably cared for, and 
speedily restored to health. Her first aim, as well as that of Mr. 
Judson, was to acquire the language. This she found extremely 
difficult, having none of the usual aids except a fragment of a 
manuscript grammar, begun by Mr. Carey, and six chapters of 
Matthew, likewise translated by him. They hired a teacher, 
whose duty, at first, as he did not understand English, was to pro- 
nounce the Birman names of such objects as his pupils pointed 
out. To acquire the names was in this way comparatively easy, 
but to familiarize themselves with the verbs and with the struc- 
ture of the language was a labor requiring the utmost diligence 
and perseverance. 

The studies which it was thus necessary to pursue before they 
could attempt any communication with the natives, were from 
time to time agreeably varied. In September, the devoted couple 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON 457 

commemorated the Saviour's death by communing at his table ; 
and on the 11th of December, Mrs. Judson visited, for the first 
time, the wife of the Yiceroy. "While waiting for this lady, the 
favorite of his highness, his inferior wives examined her gloves, 
bonnet and ribbons in mute curiosity. When the vicereine 
appeared, smoking a long silver pipe, they withdrew to a dis- 
tance and crouched upon the ground. Her highness was affable 
and polite. She inquired if Mrs. Judson was her husband's 
favorite, that is, if she was one of many, and the sultana of his 
harem. At last the viceroy himself came in, clad in a long robe 
and carrying an enormous spear. He, too, was courteous, and 
carried his condescension so far as to ask Mrs. Judson to join 
him in a glass of rum. In April, 1814, Mr. Carey returned from 
Calcutta, bringing with him letters from home. Mrs. Carey 
was drowned in August of the same year, and Mr. Carey left 
Rangoon for Ava. Mr. and Mrs. Judson were therefore once 
more alone. The latter wrote thus to a friend at this period : 

" Could you look into a large open room which we call a 
verandah, you would see Mr. Judson bent over his table covered 
with Birman books, with his teacher at his side, a venerable 
looking man in his sixtieth year, with a cloth wrapped round his 
middle and a handkerchief round his head. They talk and chat- 
ter all day long with hardly any cessation. My own teacher 
comes at ten, when, were you present, you might see me in an 
inner room, at one side of my study table, and my teacher the 
other, reading Birman, writing, talking, etc. I have many more 
interruptions than Mr. Judson, as I have the entire management 
of the family and servants. This I took upon myself, for the 
sake of Mr. Judson's attending more closely to the study of the 
language ; yet I have found by a year's experience, that it was 
the most direct way that I could have taken to acquire the lan- 
guage. As I am frequently obliged to speak Birman all day, I 
can talk and understand others better than Mr. Judson, though he 
knows more about the nature and construction of the language.' 



458 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

Of the difficulties which they had to encounter, Mr. Judson 
thus writes : " When we take up a western language, the simi- 
'arity in the characters, in very many terms, in many modes of 
expression, and in the general structure of the sentences, its 
being in fair print — a circumstance we hardly think uf — and the 
assistance of grammars, dictionaries and instructors, render the 
work comparatively easy. But when we take up a language 
spoken by a people on the other side of the earth, whose very 
thoughts run in channels diverse from ours, and whose modes of 
expression are, consequently, all new and uncouth ; when we 
find the letters and words all totally destitute of the least resem- 
blance to any language we had ever met with, and these words 
not fairly divided and distinguished, as in western writing, by 
breaks and points and capitals, but run together in one con- 
tinuous line , a sentence or paragraph seeming to the eye but one 
long word : when, instead of characters on paper, we find only 
obscure scratches on dried palm leaves, and called a book : when 
we have no dictionary and no interpreter to explain a sinele 
word, and must get something of the language before we can 
avail ourselves of the assistance of a native teacher, ' hie opus, 
hie labor est.' " 

Another difficulty which they experienced in this early stage 
of their mission, was the impossibility of finding synonymes in the 
Birmese dialect for many of the words and ideas which form the 
very basis of the Christian religion, such as God, heaven, eternity, 
etc. The Birman idols pass through various gradations of exist- 
ence, from a fowl to a deity, and arrive at perfection and happi- 
ness upon ceasing to exist. In Mrs. Judson's time, Gaudama, 
their last deity, had been in bliss, that is, in a state of annihila- 
tion, for about two thousand years. His believers, however, with 
a wonderful inconsistency, still worshipped a hair of his head, for 
which purpose they repaired to an enormous pagoda, in which it 
A^as enshrined, every eighth day. Mrs. Judson avers, and it will 
easily be believed, that it was exceedingly difficult to convey to 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 45U 

eucli people any idea of the true God and the way of salvation by 
Christ. The people often said to her, after an effort to under- 
stand her teachings — "Your religion is good for you, ours for us." 

In January, 1815, Mrs. Judsou, being in somewhat feeble 
health, embarked for Madras, hoping to profit by a change of air. 
She would not allow Mr. Judson to leave the studies and labors 
of his mission. The viceroy permitted her to take a native wo- 
man with her, thus violating, in her behalf, the strict law which 
forbids Birmese females to quit the country. The captain of the 
ship refused to accept any remuneration for her passage, and the 
English physician at Madras declined, with courteous wishes for 
her welfare, the seventy rupees which she sent him upon her 
restoration to health. She returned to Rangoon in the summer, 
and in September, gave birth to her first child, a son. She had 
no physician nor attendant whatever, except Mr. Judson. With 
that fervor of devotion to the cause which characterized her, she 
consecrated her infant to the service in which its parents were 
engaged. " May his life be spared," she wrote, " and his heart 
sanctified, that he may become a missionary among the Birmans." 
Her prayer was not answered ; the child died at the age of eight 
months, and was buried in the mission garden. The afflicted 
mother, seeking to know with what end the dispensation was sent, 
found it in the consciousness that her heart was too much bound 
up in her child, as she felt him to be her only source of innocent 
recreation in that heathen land. She bowed to the stroke, but 
prayed that the lesson might be so improved that God would stay 
His hand, saying, "It is enough." 

The prospects of the missionaries now perceptibly brightened. 
Mr. and Mrs. Hough arrived at Rangoon in October, bringing 
with them a printing press and types. Two tracts, in Birmese, 
were published ; one containing a view of the Christian reli- 
gion ; the other being a catechism for children. Of the 
former, one thousand copies were printed, and of the latte 
three thousand. An edition of eight hundred copies of Mr 



460 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

Judson's translation of the Gospel of Matthew was commenced. 
In March, 1817, Mr. Judson was visited by the first inquirer 
after divine truth that he had yet seen in Biraiah — for he 
could not conscientiously apply that epithet to the many in- 
different persons who, from curiosity or other motives, had 
casually conversed with him upon the subject. By August, 
Mrs. Judson had collected a little society of females, to whom 
she read the Scriptures on the Sabbath. One of these pupils 
declared her belief in Christ, asserting that she prayed to him 
every day. It appeared, subsequently, that this woman, being 
of a prudent turn of mind, and wishing to be prepared for 
any emergency, also believed in Gaudama, whose hair, enshrined 
in the pagoda, she continued to worship with fervor. A few 
children committed the catechism to memory, and amused them- 
selves by frequently repeating it to each other. 

Mr. Judson now felt himself qualified to enter upon a more 
extended sphere of exertion, by publicly preaching to the natives 
in their own idiom. He set sail, in December, for Chittagong, in 
Arracan, for the purpose of obtaining the aid of one of the native 
Christians residing there. An accident to the vessel compelled 
her to change her course — a disaster which subjected Mr. Judson 
to the most annoying delays, prevented him from accomplishing 
the object he had in view, and kept him seven months from the 
scene of his labors. On his return, in July, 1818, he learned 
that events of an alarming nature had occurred at Rangoon, and 
that the preservation of the mission had been due to the firmness 
and fearlessness of his wife. We return to the period of his de- 
parture, the previous December. 

Mrs. Judson lived without molestation for some weeks, being 
an especial favorite of the viceroy and his family. The vicereine 
frequently sent her an elephant, upon which she accompanied her 
on her excursions. On these occasions Mrs. Judson conversed 
with her principally on the subject of religion, and, at parting, 
gave her translations, tracts and catechisms. When Mr. Judson 



ANNE HASSELTTNE JUDSON. 461 

bad been gone three months, a native boat arrived, twelve days 
out from Chittagong, bringing the intelligence that Mr. Judson's 
ship had not arrived there. Upon the heels of this distressing 
information, the viceroy and his friendly family were summoned 
to Ava, the capital, leaving Mrs. Judson absolutely without 
friends in the government of Rangoon. A menacing order was 
now sent to Mr. Hough, requiring him to appear at the court- 
house and give an account of himself. The teachers, domestics 
and adherents of the mission were thrown into consternation by 
this message, so unlike any they had ever received from the au- 
thorities. Mr. Hough was subjected to a most frivolous examina- 
tion, the scribes of the court registering, with the utmost forma- 
lity, his answers to inquiries as to the names of his parents and 
the number of his suits of clothes. This was kept up for two 
days, but when he was again summoned on the third day, Sun- 
day, Mrs. Judson resolved to appeal to the newly appointed vice- 
roy. Her teacher drew up a petition, and Mrs. Judson, gaining 
access to his highness, boldly presented it to him. The viceroy 
at once commanded that the American Christians should be no 
more molested, and it appeared that Mr. Hough's examination was 
owing to a suspicion that he was a Portuguese Catholic, three of 
whom were known to inhabit Rangoon, and whose expulsion 
from the country had been ordered by the king. Though the 
mission was thus preserved, its influence was greatly impaired, 
only twelve of Mr. Judson's thirty Sunday listeners daring to re- 
turn to the mission house again. The cholera commenced to rage 
at this period, and as the season was unusually hot, its ravages 
were correspondingly violent. The natives, attributing the infec- 
tion to evil spirits, endeavored to expel them by firing cannon 
in the streets and beating their houses with clubs. Through the 
exertions of Mrs. Judson, however, not an individual among the 
adherents of the mission succumbed to the epidemic. 

Mr. Judson had now been absent nearly seven months, and no 
tidings whatever had been received from him since his departure. 



462 ANNE HA3SELTINE JUDSON. 

Rumors of war between England and Birmah now compelled such 
British ships as lay at anchor at Rangoon to leave the harbor, 
while the imminence of an embargo rendered it impossible that 
others should arrive, thus destroying the only chance of Mr. Jud- 
son's return. But one ship remained, and in this, Mrs. Judson 
and Mr. and Mrs. Hough embarked for Bengal. A defect in the 
stowage of the cargo resulted in their detention, and Mrs. Judson, 
regarding this interruption of her voyage as providential, re&elved 
once more to confront the perils which beset the mission, and, 
though ignorant whether her husband were alive or dead, disem- 
barked and returned to her abandoned home. Her courage and 
constancy were rewarded by the safe return of Mr. Judson within 
the ensuing fortnight. The prospects of the mission were further 
brightened by the arrival, the following year, of Messrs. Coleman 
and Wheelock with their wives, from Boston, bearing credentials 
from the Baptist Commissioners. 

Mr. Judson, believing himself now qualified to preach in pub- 
lic, and being furnished with sufficient tracts and translations, 
resolved to erect a small chapel or zayat, in which to preach 
and to converse with all comers upon religious subjects. It was 
located near the mission, and upon a road much frequented by the 
worshippers in a neighboring pagoda, and hence known as Pagoda 
Street. This attempt was a hazardous one, inasmuch as the tran- 
quillity the missionaries had hitherto enjoyed was owing to the 
retirement in which they had lived, and as this favor would in 
all probability be withdrawn, should they enter upon a more 
ambitious career. The zayat, built of bamboo and thatch, w T as 
nevertheless opened in April, 1819, and the first public exhorta- 
tion was delivered to an inattentive and disorderly audience of 
fifteen persons. Following the custom of the native preachers of 
the country, Mr. Judson sat upon the floor, speaking and dis- 
tributing tracts in that posture. From time to time, an inquirer 
would come and spend the greater part of the day, promising to 
return, but usually failiug to do so. Mrs. Judson presided, on 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 463 

these occasions, at the female school in an interior apartment. 
On the 30th of April, a man named Moimg Nau, or Nau the mid- 
dle-aged, and destined to be the first Birman convert to Christ- 
ianity, visited the zayat. He paid but little attention and excited 
no hope. But upon a subsequent visit, he expressed sentiments 
of repentance for his sins and faith in the Saviour, to whom he 
proposed to adhere forever and worship all his life long. He 
was baptized on the 19th of June, the event causing the most 
heartfelt joy to all interested in the mission. On the following 
Sunday, they sat for the first time at the Lord's table with a con- 
verted Birman ; and Mr. Judson enjoyed a privilege to which he 
had been looking forward for years — that of administering the 
sacrament in two languages. From this time forward, the zayat 
was constantly attended by throngs of visitors, many impelled by 
idle curiosity, a few by a spirit of serious inquiry. Mr. Judson 
was often advised to obtain the patronage of the king — the Lord 
of Life and Death — the Owner of the Sword ; as the new religion, 
if approved by him, would spread with rapidity through the 
realm ; but if, as at present, it remained in open hostility to the 
established faith, converts could not hope to escape persecution 
and might reasonably expect death. 

In October, two other Birmans presented themselves at the 
zayat, professing their faith in Christ, and requesting to be bap- 
tized, but in private. Mr. Judson advised them, as they had so 
little faith as not to be willing, if necessary, to die in the cause, to 
wait and reconsider the matter. They came again, earnestly re- 
questing baptism, not absolutely in private, but at least after sunset 
and in a retired spot. Mr. Judson felt that he could not con- 
scientiously decline the request, and appointed the morrow for the, 
ceremony. " The sun," he writes, "was not allowed to look upon 
the timid, humble profession. No wondering crowd crowned the 
overshadowing hill. No hymn of praise expressed the exulting 
feeling of joyous hearts. Stillness and solemnity pervaded the 
scene. We felt, on the banks of the water, as a little, feeble, solitary 



464 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

band. But, perhaps, some hovering angels took note of the 
event with more interest than they witnessed the late coronation." 

It now seemed evident, that for a vigorous and effectual prose- 
cution of their labors, the favor of the monarch must be obtained. 
Mr. Judson and Mr. Colman procured a boat and started in De- 
cember, 1819, upon their voyage of five hundred miles up the Irra- 
waddy to Ava, the seat of government. Aware of the necessity 
of accompanying their petition with an offer of presents, they took 
with them a fine edition of the Bible in six volumes, each volume 
being covered with gold leaf and inclosed in a rich wrapper. 
They obtained access to his Birmese majesty, who listened with 
apparent interest to the reading of the petition. His answer, 
delivered through an interpreter, was as follows : " In regard to 
the objects of your petition, his majesty gives no order. In 
regard to your sacred books, his majesty has no use for them ; 
take them away." Thus repulsed and discouraged, the mis- 
sionaries returned to Rangoon. 

Mr. Judson now continued his labors with success, and in 
July, the number of baptized converts amounted to ten, only one 
of whom was a woman. Mrs. Judson was suffering from a severe 
attack of liver complaint, and her husband accompanied her to 
Calcutta, and from thence to Serampore ; the appearance of 
favorable symptoms induced them to return to the scene of their 
usefulness in January, 1821. But a dangerous relapse convinced 
Mrs. Judson that recovery was impossible beneath a tropical sun, 
and induced her to embark in August for America, by way 
of Calcutta and Great Britain. She arrived in New York in 
September, 1822. Her Indian constitution could not bear the 
extreme contrast presented by a New England winter, and she 
was compelled to forego the delightful intercourse with her 
parents and sisters in which she had hoped to spend the few 
months of her sojourn, and to seek the more temperate meridian 
of Baltimore. The Rev. Dr. Wayland, who at this period became 
intimately acquainted with her, thus speaks of her in his Memoir 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 465 

of her husband : " I do not remember ever to have met a more 
remarkable woman. To great clearness of intellect, large powers 
of comprehension, and intuitive female sagacity, ripened by the 
constant necessity of independent action, she added that heroic 
disinterestedness which naturally loses all consciousness of self 
in the prosecution of a great object. These elements, however, 
were all held in reserve, and were hidden from public view by a 
veil of unusual feminine delicacy. To an ordinary observer she 
would have appeared simply a self-possessed, well-bred and very 
intelligent gentlewoman. A more intimate acquaintance would 
soon discover her to be a person of profound religious feeling, 
which was ever manifesting itself in efforts to impress upon 
others the importance of personal piety. The resources of her 
nature were never unfolded until some occasion occurred which 
demanded delicate tact, unflinching courage, and a power of 
resolute endurance even unto death. When I saw her, her 
complexion bore that sallow hue which commonly follows resi- 
dence in the East Indies. Her countenance at first seemed, when 
in repose, deficient in expression. As she found herself among 
friends who were interested in the Birman mission, her reserve 
melted away, her eye kindled, every feature was lighted up with 
enthusiasm, and she was everywhere acknowledged to be one of 
the most fascinating of women." 

In spite of the opinion of her London physicians, that she 
could not live if she returned to the East, Mrs. Judson, some- 
what improved in health, embarked at Boston, in June, 1823. 
for Calcutta. The voyage was propitious, and at the close of 
the year she rejoined Mr. Judson at Rangoon. She found the 
mission at the height of its prosperity — Mr., now, by the action 
of Brown University, Dr. Judson, having completed the trans- 
lation of the New Testament, having gathered a church of 
eighteen native members, and having been strengthened by the 
arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Wade, and the return of Mr. and Mrs. 
Hough. More than all, the " religion-propagating teachers," as 



466 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

they were called, had been left unmolested, and their efforts had 
not as yet, at least, awakened the spirit of persecution. 

Dr. Price, a newly arrived member of the mission, having 
been summoned, in his medical character, to the capital, Dr. 
Judson accompanied him, and having found favor with the em- 
peror, resolved to leave the church at Rangoon under the care 
of his associates, and attempt the establishment of a station at 
Ava. He felt impelled to this step not only by the natural 
desire of bearing the message of salvation to "the regions 
beyond,' 7 but by the conviction that the principle of toleration, 
exhibited in the sufferance of a Christian church in the metro- 
polis, would thus be established for the whole empire. While 
awaiting the return of Mrs. Judson to Rangoon, he made the 
necessary preparations for their passage up the river, and on her 
arrival these were so far completed that her baggage was taken 
from the ship to the Irrawaddy boat. The ascent of this noble 
stream through the heart of a region consecrated to the worship 
of idols, was at once interesting and painful to Mrs. Judson. Their 
progress was slow, as the current ran rapidly ; but the season 
was cool and the weather delightful, and they suffered no great 
discomfort during their six weeks' voyage. On arriving at Ava, 
they resolved to remain in the boat till a house could be built 
upon the land which the king had given Dr. Juilson upon his 
previous visit. One fortnight sufficed for the erection of a build- 
ing, which, though affording them shelter, was no protection 
against the heat, constructed entirely, as it was, of boards. Dr. 
Judson at once commenced his evening and Sabbath services, 
while his wife proceeded successfully with her domestic arrange- 
ments and her infant school. 

War now broke out between the Birman government and 
the East India Company of Bengal. Rangoon was attacked in 
May, 1824, by an army of 6,000 English and native troops, 
and surrendered without resistance. The American missionaries 
there underwent many perils, and finally escaped to Bengal 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 467 

The missionaries at Ava at once fell under suspicion. Three 
Englishmen residing there were arrested, examined and confined. 
Dr. Judson was arrested on the 8th of June by a pos^e of a 
dozen men, one of whom wore the garb of an executioner. 
11 Where is the teacher ?" was the first inquiry. Dr. Judson 
stood forth. The executioner at once seized him, threw him on 
the ground, and bound him with a slight, though tenacious whip- 
cord. In spite of the entreaties of Mrs. Judson, and of her 
offers of money to the executioner, they dragged him off to the 
court-house, where the king's order concerning him was read. 
He was thrown into the death-prison, there to await his fate. 
Mrs. Judson, in this terrible emergency, did not suffer her 
presence of mind to desert her. Before submitting to the 
examination which she knew she would be failed upon to under- 
go, she destroyed all her letters and the minute record of daily 
occurrences it had been her habit to keep. Otherwise, they 
would have been exposed to an accusation of maintaining a cor- 
respondence with the enemy, and of furnishing them with regular 
bulletins of the state of the country and the progress of events. 
A guard of ten ruffians was posted before the house ; the ser- 
vants were placed in the stocks, and Mrs. Judson, with four of 
her Birman pupils, was barred up in an inner room. The guard 
passed the night in carousings and indecent revelry. 

Mrs. Judson ascertained the next morning that her husband 
and the other white foreigners were confined in the death-prison, 
and were manacled with three pairs of iron fetters each. Her 
activity, invention and resources, under these harassing circum- 
stances, display her character in glowing colors. She besought 
a magistrate, to whom she gained access, to allow her to appeal 
to some responsible member of the government ; she caused a 
letter to be conveyed to the king's sister, in which, with unavail- 
ing eloquence, she begged her to sue for the release of the 
teachers. With presents of tea and cigars, she softened the 
hearts of her guards, and with the promise of a rich offering to 



46S ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

the governor of the city, she obtained permission to speak to hei 
husband through the bars of the grating. Dr. Judson, heavily 
ironed and stretched upon the bare floor, crawled to the half- 
open door, and hastily gave her some directions relative to 
his release. She was dragged away before any plan of action 
had been concerted between them. Milder councils seem now 
to have prevailed in the bosoms of the officials, for the foreign 
prisoners were removed that same evening to an open shed in 
the prison inclosure, where Mrs. Judson, who was not admitted 
to see them, was allowed to send them food and mats to sleep 
upon. 

The mission house was now visited by the fiscal officers for 
the purpose of confiscating any articles of value they might find. 
" Where are your gold and jewels?" asked the royal treasurer. 
"I have no gold or jewels," Mrs. Judson replied, "but here 
is the key of the trunk containing the silver ; do with it as you 
please. But remember, this money was collected in America, by 
the disciples of Christ, and sent here for the purpose of building 
a house for the teacher, and for our support while teaching the 
new religion. Do you think it right to take it?" She made 
this inquiry, well aware that the Birmans scrupulously avoid 
diverting from its destination money devoted to a religious 
object. The matter was laid before the king, who ordered the 
silver to be set apart, that it might be restored to the teacher, if, 
upon due examination, he were found innocent of the charge of 
espionage. 

For seven months the situation of the missionaries remained 
unchanged. The keepers of the prison were all branded crimi- 
nals, and bore the name of their offence burned into the flesh 
of their foreheads, cheeks or breasts. The chief jailer was 
familiarly called the tiger cat ; and he strove to deserve the 
hideous designation by the playful ferocity with which he would 
ply his hammer while fastening manacles, or affectionately clasp 
his victims in his arms in order to get a better opportunity to 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 469 

prick or pinch them. Mrs. Judson, on one occasion, "made a 
great effort to surprise her husband with something that should 
remind him of home. She planned and labored, till, by the aid 
of buffalo beef and plantains, she actually concocted a mince pie 
Unfortunately, as she thought, she could not go in person to the 
prison that day ; and the dinner was brought by smiling Moung 
Ing, who seemed aware that some mystery must be wrapped up 
in that peculiar preparation of meat and fruit, though he had 
never seen the well-spread boards of Plymouth and Bradford. 
But the pretty little artifice only added another pang to a heart 
whose susceptibilities were as quick and deep, as, in the light of 
the world, they were silent. He bowed his head upon his knees, 
and the tears flowed down to the chains about his ankles. He 
thrust the carefully-prepared dinner into the hands of his 
associate, and as fast as his fetters would permit, hurried to his 
own little shed." 

There was hardly a single member of the government, of 
high or low degree, to whom Mrs. Judson did not gain admit- 
tance and whom she did not beseech, in winning or despairing 
accents, to intercede in her behalf. From stores which seemed 
mexhaustible, she provided gifts with which to meet the rapacious 
extortions of jailers, governors, servants, and even of the royal 
family. The only European female in the place and the only 
foreigner suffered to remain at liberty, she seems to have been 
providentially designed as the ministering angel of the Birman 
prison. Dr. Wayland offers the following tribute to her charac- 
ter and services : 

" Perfectly familiar with the Birman language, of a presence 
which commanded respect even from savage barbarians, and 
encircled her with a moral atmosphere in which she walked 
unharmed in the midst of a hostile city, with no earthly protec- 
tor, she was universally spoken of as the guardian angel of that 
band of sufferers. Fertile in resources, and wholly regardless of 
her own privations or exposure, she was incessantly occupied in 



470 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

alleviating the pain or ministering to the wants of those who had 
no other friends. 

11 Rarely does it happen that the moral extremes of which our 
nature is susceptible are brought into so striking contrast as in 
the present instance. On the one hand might here have been 
seen the most degraded of mankind inflicting m sport the most 
horrid cruelties month after month upon their fellow men, some 
of whom had sacrified every earthly comfort for the good of their 
tormentors ; and on the other hand there was seen, in the midst 
of this horde of ruffians, a lady whose intelligence and refinement 
had lately won the admiration of the highest circles of the British 
metropolis, soothing the sorrows of the captive, providing and 
preparing food for the starving, consoling the dying with words 
of heavenly peace ; heedless of meridian suns and midnight dews, 
though surrounded by infection, devoting herself with prodigal 
disinterestedness to the practice of heavenly charity, and sustain- 
ing the courage of men inured to danger and familiar with death 
by the example of her own dauntless resolution.' 7 

From an obituary poem written some years later by Mrs. 
Sigourney, we quote the following lines : 

"Stern sickness smote her, but she felt it not, 
Heeded it not, and still with tireless zeal 
Carried the hoarded morsel to her love ; 
Dared the rude arrogance of savage power 
To plead for him, and bade his dungeon glow 
With her fair brow, as erst the angel's smile 
Arous'd imprison'd Peter, when his hands, 
Loos'd from their chains, were lifted high in praise ! " 

The war still continued, and was prosecuted on the part of 
the Birmans with commendable energy but with unvarying 
insuccess. Mrs. Judson abandoned all hope of escape before a 
cessation of hostilities. She spent several hours of every day at 
the house of the governor, giving him all information in her 
power, and asking in return some slight alleviation of the 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 471 

prisoners' situation. At last, as a great favor, she was permitted 
to build a bamboo hovel in the prison inclosure, and here 
Dr. Judson passed the two cold months of the winter. For 
three weeks Mrs. Judson was now absent from the dungeon, and 
when she returned, it was to bring a pale and puny infant of 
twenty days to its father in the prison yard. " No person," says 
an eye-witness, " not thoroughly conversant with the secret 
springs of feeling which made his the richest heart that ever 
beat in human bosom, would be at all able to appreciate the 
scene. His first child slept beneath the waters of the Bay of 
Bengal, a baby-martyr, without the martyr's conflict j 1 the 
second, his 'meek, blue-eyed Roger/ had his bed in the jungle 
graveyard at Rangoon ; and here came the third little wan 
stranger, to claim the first parental kiss from the midst of felon 
chains. 

" Mrs. Judson had long previous to this adopted the Birmese 
style of dress. Her rich Spanish complexion could never be 
mistaken for the tawny hue of the natives ; and her figure of full 
medium height, appeared much taller and more commanding in a 
costume usually worn by women of inferior size. But her friend, 
the governor's wife, who presented her with the dress, recom- 
mended the measure as a concession which would be sure to 
conciliate the people, and win them to a kindlier treatment 
of her. Behold her, then, her dark curls, carefully straightened, 
drawn back from her forehead, and a fragrant cocoa-blossom, 
drooping like a white plume from the knot upon the crown ; her 
saffron vest thrown open to display the folds of crimson beneath ; 
and a rich silken skirt, wrapped closely about her fine figure, 
parting at the ankle, and sloping back upon the floor. The 
clothing of the feet was not Birman, for the native sandal could 
not be worn except upon a bare foot. Behold her standing in 
the doorway — for she was never permitted to enter the prison — 

1 We find no authority for this statement whatever; it is doubtless incorrect. 
30 



472 ANNE HASSELT1NE JUDSON. 

her little blue-eyed blossom wailing, as it almost always did, 
upon her bosom, and the chained father crawling forth to the 
meeting !" 

Dr. Judson whiled away a portion of Ins prison hours in 
composing a poetical address to the daughter born under such 
distressing auspices. These he committed to memory and after- 
wards to paper. 

The defeat of the Birman army, and the advance of the Eng- 
lish from Rangoon up the Irrawaddy towards Prome, threw the 
court at Av a into the utmost consternation. The prisoners were 
treated with renewed severity, being loaded with additional fetters 
and crowded like sheep into close and unwholesome pens. The 
governor wept at the appeal which Mrs. Judson in this darken- 
ing hour addressed him, but reiterated his inability to aid her. 
Indeed he had received, he said, orders to assassinate the foreign- 
ers privately, and the most he could do, in endeavoring to avoid 
the execution of the order, was to put them out of sight. The 
death of Bandoola, the leader of the army, plunged the city into 
deeper anxiety than ever : one of its immediate effects was the 
removal of the prisoners — a measure which was announced to 
Mrs. Judson by one of her attached servants, who came running 
to her with a ghastly countenance, and, in trembling accents, 
gave her the direful information. She hurried into the streets 
and interrogated the passers-by ; she hastened to the river and 
scanned its descending course ; she sent to the place of execution 
— that being an errand she could not perform herself. Her tried 
and faithful friend, the governor, condemned her to despair by 
the last words he uttered : " You can do nothing more for your 
husband ; take care of yourself." The heroic woman returned 
mechanically home, and for a time her heart sank beneath this 
accumulation of sorrows. 

Gathering her courage once more, she packed up the few ar- 
ticles of value she possessed, and deposited them at the governors 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 473 

house. Then committing her own cottage to the care of two 
servants whose wages, in this extremity, she was unable to 
pay, and taking with her her daughter, now three months old, 
her two adopted children, Mary and Abby Hasseltine", and her 
Bengalee cook, she set off in the direction of the river's course. 
She obtained a covered boat, in which she accomplished two 
miles, or half the distance to Amarapora. She then procured a 
cart, in which, through the blinding glare of the sun and dust, 
she performed the rest of the weary road. She now learned 
that the prisoners had been sent on two hours before, and though 
literally exhausted by fatigue, she resolutely pursued her way 
towards that " never-to-be-forgotten place, Oung-pen-la." Here, 
beneath a low projection in front of a shattered, roofless building, 
which was called the prison, sat the foreigners, more dead than 
alive, chained together, two by two. They had been driven 
barefoot, beneath a mid-day midsummer sun, over eight miles of 
blistering sand, from Ava to Oung-pen-la. The agony of Dr. 
Judson was such — for his feet were cut to the bone — that he 
longed to throw himself into the river ; his horror of suicide alone 
prevented him. One of their number had succumbed upon the 
road. They expected to be burned alive, a report to that effect 
having been in circulation at Ava ; the view of a dozen Birmans 
attempting to form a thatch of leaves for the prison, was the first 
intimation they had that the building was intended for their 
permanent confinement. It was at this juncture that Mrs. Jud- 
son arrived. "Why have you come ?" were her husband's first 
words ; " I had hoped you would not follow, for you cannot live 
here." She had no food either for herself, her children, or the 
prisoners ; the jailer, however, took her to his house, and estab- 
lished her in one of the two rooms which it contained — a mere 
receptacle for grain, of which it was nearly full. Here, in the 
midst of filth and misery, she was destined to spend the six next 
wretched months. 

Another sore trial speedily came to aggravate her already 



474 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

desperate situation : Mary Hasseltine, the eldest of her adopted 
children, was taken with the small pox the day after their arrival. 
In the prison lay Dr. Judson, his feet so dreadfully mangled that 
he could not move ; at home, pillowed amongst the grain, lay 
little Mary, a Birman orphan, tended by a Christian nurse, 
delirious with fever, and so horribly disfigured that her face 
became one festering scar. Backwards and forwards from the 
pen to the prison went Mrs. Judson, carrying food to the one 
and comfort to the other, bearing her infant in her arms from 
morn to eve, and sleeping at night upon a bamboo mat. She 
inoculated Abby Hasseltine and the jailer's children, whose play 
was hardly interrupted by the scourge thus modified. Her fame 
spread, and all the children in the village, big and little, came to 
her for inoculation. In spite of previous vaccination, she herself 
caught the contagion ; and her baby, exposed at the same 
moment to infection and to the effects of inoculation, took 
the disease in its severer form, and was for three months a 
sufferer. 

At last the children recovered and Dr. Judson revived ; and 
then Mrs. Judson sank. Fatigue, anxiety, miserable and insuffi- 
cient food, broken and comfortless rest, had borne their inevit- 
able fruits. Her constitution seemed destroyed, and she could 
no longer go upon her daily errand of mercy to the prison. She 
obtained an ox-cart and set off for Ava ; there, with some 
difficulty, she procured the medicine-chest she had left with the 
governor. By repeated doses of laudanum she checked the 
immediate progress of the disease ; but feeling herself past 
recovery, she returned to Oung-pen-la, to die near the prison. 
The Bengalee cook burst into tears as he saw her wasted form. 
She crawled on to the mat in the grain-room, and there, in a 
situation shocking to humanity and sickening to the soul, she 
remained for seven weeks, her iron constitution battling with a 
disease which rarely spared the native and showed no mercy to 
the foreigner. During this illness occurred an affecting incident, 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 475 

to parallel which one might ransack the history of mankind in 
vain. 

Mrs. Judson's illness deprived her little Maria, who was still 
a nursing infant, of her usual nourishment, and neither nurse 
nor milk were to be procured in the village. The jailer, whether 
touched by the utter misery of the family, or moved by the offer 
of presents which the mother made him, suffered Dr. Judson, 
whom he released for an hour or two from prison upon a Christ- 
ian parole, to take the emaciated child in his arms and carry 
her from house to house, though still with a few inches of chain 
between his shackled feet, begging a little nourishment from 
compassionate mothers who had children at the breast! The 
annals of Rome and Lacedgemon furnish no such harrowing picture 
as this missionary sketch from Oung-pen-la. 

The Birmese government experiencing great inconvenience 
from the want of a reliable interpreter and translator in their 
negotiations with the victorious troops of Sir Archibald Camp- 
bell, resolved to employ Dr. Judson in that capacity, and sum- 
moned him to Ava. His family followed him, as a matter of 
course. He was sent to Maloun, where, though very ill of 
fever and suffering every conceivable torture, he spent six 
weeks in translating, and rendering other similar services to the 
army. Mrs. Judson, during his absence, was seized with that 
fearful tropical disease, the spotted fever ; knowing that her 
constitution was shattered, and that she could expect no proper 
medical assistance, she made up her mind that the attack would 
be fatal. The release of Dr. Price, however, from prison, at this 
juncture, and his presence at her bedside, doubtless aided her 
recovery. Her hair was shaven ; her head and feet were 
covered with blisters ; she lost her reason and refused nourish- 
ment. Her Birmese neighbors gathered around her, that they 
might, see a Christian die; "she is dead," they said, in theii 
hyperbolic language; " and if the King of Angels should come 
in, he could not recover her." 



476 ANNE HASSELT1NE JUDSON. 

Nevertheless, the fever turned, and in a month Mrs, Judson 
was again able to walk. Dr. Judson was now sent back from 
Maloun to Ava, the officer who conducted him bearing the fol- 
lowing communication respecting him from the camp to the 
court: "We have no further use for Yoodthan ; we therefore 
return him to the Golden City." The functionary before whom 
he was brought was upon the point of dispatching him to Oung- 
pen-la, when the governor of the north gate, wrought upon by 
Mrs. Judson's tearful entreaties, offered himself as his security, 
obtained his release, and received both him and Mrs. Judson as 
guests beneath his roof. We have now arrived at the close of 
this long catalogue of persecutions and calamities. 

The triumphant advance of the English compelled the Bir- 
mese government to treat with the enemy in order to save the 
city. Dr. Price and Dr. Judson were both made to act as com- 
missioners on behalf of the King of Ava, and returned with the 
conditions which Sir Archibald Campbell attached to his promise 
to leave the capital unharmed. One of these was the release of 
all the foreigners in the city ; and in virtue of this clause, Dr. 
and Mrs. Judson and their daughter took an affectionate leave 
of the governor, who had so often befriended them, and bade 
farewell forever to the banks of Ava. " It was on a cool, moon- 
light evening, in the month of March, that with hearts filled with 
gratitude to God, and overflowing with joy at our prospects, we 
passed down the Irrawaddy, surrounded by six or eight golden 
boats and accompanied by all we had on earth. We now, for 
the first time for more than a year and a half, felt that we were 
free, and no longer subject to the oppressive yoke of the Bir- 
mese. And with what sensations of delight, on the next morn- 
ing, did I behold the masts of the steamboat, the sure presage 
of being within the bounds of civilized life!' 7 Some months 
later, Dr. Judson, after listening to a series of anecdotes of what 
different men in different ages had regarded as examples of the 
highest possible sensuous enjoyment, said: 'Pooh! these men 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 477 

were not qualified to judge. 1 know of a much higher pleasure 
than that. What do you think of floating down the Irrawaddy 
on a cool, moonlit evening, with your wife by your side and your 
baby in your arms, free, all free ? But you cannot understand 
it either ; it needs a twenty-one months' qualification ; and I can 
never regret my twenty-one months of misery, when I recall 
that one delicious thrill. I think I have had a better apprecia- 
tion of what heaven may be ever since." 

Mrs. Judson, whose fame had preceded her to the English 
camp of Yandabo, was received with parental kindness by Sir 
Archibald, and with military honors by his officers. She was fur- 
nished with a tent larger and more commodious than that of the 
general, with the delightful addition of a verandah. She felt 
that her obligations towards him could never be cancelled, and 
presumed that no persons on earth were ever happier than she 
and her husband during the fortnight which followed. A remark- 
able exemplification of the vicissitudes of life might have been 
witnessed at a dinner given some days afterwards to the Birman 
Commissioners. At sight of Mrs. Judson, seated at the general's 
right hand, and evidently an honored and influential guest, they 
shrunk into their seats with faces blank with consternation. 
" What is the matter with yonder owner of the pointed beard ?" 
asked Sir Archibald. " I do not know," she answered, " unless 
his memory may be too busy." Upon being urged to describe 
the circumstances which, doubtless, caused the ambassador's 
alarm, she related how she had once walked five miles to his 
house, to ask some favor for her husband, who was suffering 
with fever in prison, with five pairs of fetters about his ankles. 
He roughly refused her request, and at the same time, noticing 
her silk umbrella, seized upon it and snatched it from her hands. 
She begged him to give her in exchange at least a paper parasol, 
to protect her from the scorching heat. He jestingly replied that 
stout people alone were liable to sunstrokes, while she was so 
thin as hardly to cast a shadow ! He then drove her from the 



478 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

door. The English officers did not attempt to restrain their in- 
dignation, at this narrative ; the trembling subject of it, perfectly 
aware of what was passing and clammy with perspiration, sat in 
abject fear of immediate death. Mrs. Judson, after a mischievous, 
but momentary, enjoyment of his dismay, whispered to him, in 
Birmese, that she had forgiven him and that he had nothing to 
fear. 

The Judsons soon descended the Irrawaddy to Rangoon, their 
former home, now in possession of the English. On their way 
down the stream, they noticed a signal of distress from the shore. 
It proved to be Lieut. Campbell, who had been robbed, wounded 
and deserted by his own boatmen. He was taken on board and 
tenderly cared for. He afterwards wrote the following account 
of his sojourn upon the Irrawaddy boat : " My eyes first rested 
on the thin, attenuated form of a lady — a white lady ! the first I 
had seen for more than a year ; and now the soothing accents of 
female words fell upon my ears like a household hymn of my 
youth. My wound was tenderly dressed, my head bound up, 
and I was laid upon a sofa bed. With what a thankful heart did 
I breathe forth a blessing on those good Samaritans ! With 
what delight did I drink in the mild, gentle sounds of that sweet 
woman's voice, as she pressed me to recruit my strength with 
some of that beverage ' which cheers but not inebriates !' She 
was seated in a large sort of swinging chair, of American con- 
struction, in which her slight, emaciated, but graceful form ap- 
peared almost ethereal. Yet, with much of heaven, there were 
still the breathings of earthly feeling about her ; for at her feet 
rested a babe, a little, wan baby, on which her eyes often turned 
with all a mother's love ; and gazing frequently upon her delicate 
features, with a fond, yet fearful glance, was that meek mission- 
ary, her husband. Her face was pale, very pale, with that ex- 
pression of deep, sad, serious thought which speaks of the strong 
and vigorous mind within the frail and perishing body ; her 
brown hair was braided over a placid and holy brow ; but her 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 479 

hands — those small, lily hands — were quite beautiful ; beautiful 
they were and very wan ; for, ah ! they told of disease, of death, 
deatli in all its transparent grace, when the sickly blood shines 
through the clear skin, even as the bright poison lights up the 
Venetian glass it is about to shatter. 

" I remained two days with them ; two delightful days they 
were to me. Mrs. Judson's powers of conversation were of the 
first order, and the many affecting anecdotes that she gave us of 
their long and cruel bondage, their struggles in the cause of reli- 
gion, and their adventures during a long residence at the court 
of Ava, gained a heightened interest from the beautiful and ener- 
getic simplicity of her language, as well as from the certainty I felt 
that so fragile a flower as she in very truth was, had but a brief 
season to linger on earth. When I looked my last on her mild, 
wan countenance, as she issued some instructions to my new set 
of boatmen, I felt my eyes fill with prophetic tears. They were 
not perceived. We never met again ; nor is it likely that the 
wounded subaltern was ever thought of again by those who had 
succored him." 

Upon their arrival at Rangoon, the Judsons found the city 
invested by the revolted Peguans, the mission house in ruins, 
and the converts scattered to the winds. It became necessary, 
therefore, to seek a new station for their labor of love. A site 
having been selected by the English civil commissioner as the 
capital of the provinces ceded to Great Britain, and having 
received the name of Amherst in compliment to the governor- 
general of the East India Company, they determined to be its 
first settlers. They took down the zayat and sent the boards 
forward to be again put up in a similar form. On arriving 
at the station, Captain Fenwick, in command there, at once gave 
up his house to Mrs. Judson, and withdrew to a tent in the 
cantonment. They found several huts already built by the con- 
verts who had preceded them in colonizing this wildest of Birman 
jungles During the rainy season the infant settlement made 



480 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

steady progress, comprising fifty houses, exclusive of the bar- 
racks, by the end of July. Dr. Judson was now called away by 
business connected with the government. He seems to have left 
his home without prophetic intimation that he was bidding an eter- 
nal farewell to her who had preserved his days upon earth and 
had aided him in making his name immortal. They parted, 
indeed, confident of a speedy reunion, and looking upon the 
coming separation as a comparatively light trial, after their many 
dangers and vicissitudes. 

She at once, upon his departure, commenced the construction 
of a permanent building for their residence. Into this she 
moved on the 14th of September, and on that day wrote to 
Dr. Judson the last letter he ever received from her. " For the 
first time since we were broken up at Ava," she said, "I feel 
myself at home. Poor little Maria is still feeble. I sometimes 
hope she is getting better ; then again she declines to her former 
weakness. When I ask her where papa is, she always starts up 

and points towards the sea May God preserve and 

bless you, is the prayer of your affectionate Anne." She was 
soon afterwards attacked by remittent fever. From the first she 
felt a strong presentiment that she should not recover. Captain 
Fenwick procured her a physician and a European nurse from 
the forty-fifth regiment, and everything which it was possible to 
do in that savage wilderness, was readily and zealously done. 
From time to time the fever abated, but its last approach no 
medical skill could avert. She lay for two days, senseless and 
motionless, on one side, her head reclining on one arm, her eyes 
closed. Her last word was an exclamation of distress in the 
Birman language, and at eight o'clock on the evening of the 
24th of October, she ceased to breathe. The assistant super- 
intendent of Amherst placed her remains in the coffin prepared 
to receive them, and on the evening of the 25th, her funeral took 
place. It was attended by all the European officers of the 
station, and the first female .American missionary went to her 



ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 4?1 

long home under a British military escort, but unaccompanied by 
a single friend born upon the same hemisphere with herself, and 
with perhaps not a professor of religion in the procession. She 
was buried beneath a hopia tree, about fifty rods from the house 
where she had resided ; a small rude it nee was erected around 
the grave, to protect it from incautious intrusion. Intelligence 
did not reach Mr. Judson of ' ' the catastrophe which had 
deprived him of one of the first of women and the best of 
wives, 7 ' till late in November, and shortly after his return to 
Amherst to weep over her grave, inexorable fate called upon 
him to consign to it the mortal remains of his last and still 
infant child. " Together," he wrote to Mrs. Hasseltine, at 
Bradford, "they rest in hope, under the hope tree, which 
stands at the head of their graves ; and together, I trust, 
their spirits are rejoicing after a short separation of precisely 
six months." 

The Board of Missions did not allow the grave of Mrs. Judson 
to remain without a proper tumular tribute to her worth. A 
marble tablet was procured and sent out to Amherst, where it 
was placed at the head of the Christian mound. One phrase of 
the brief biography carved upon it read thus : " She arrived, 
with her husband, at Rangoon, in July, 1813 ; and there com- 
menced those missionary toils which she sustained with such 
Christian fortitude, decision and perseverance, amid scenes of 
civil commotion and personal affliction, as won for her universal 
respect and affection.' 7 In any other form than that of an 
inscription, where severity of style and a strict adherence to 
facts are essential to good taste, this language would have been 
totally inadequate. 

The American reader will hardly need to be told, after 
perusing this succinct account of the character, achievements and 
sufferings of Mrs. Judson, that his country has never produced 
her superior. She was highly intellectual and yet delicately 
feminine ; scrupulously religious, and yet free from asceticism or 



482 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 

bigotry ; chivalrous without temerity ; of undaunted perseverance 
and heroic courage, rising superior, at the call of duty, to the 
fear of peril or the certainty of death, amidst dangers and per- 
plexities unparalleled in the history of modern missions j she 
was a model of conjugal affection, maternal devotion, and mis- 
sionary ardor. If the question were asked why, thirty years 
after her death, she does not enjoy that popular renown which 
has been the portion of many inferior women, we might answer 
that it is in a measure owing to the fact that her virtues were 
exhibited upon a field in which all mankind do not acknowledge 
the propriety or the necessity of laboring ; partly to the fact 
that one religious denomination is not apt to herald and rejoice 
in the merits and successes of another, and that Mrs. Judson 
is thus, outside of her own church, represented, not as the 
heroine of Christianity, but as the enthusiast of a sect ; not as 
the pioneer of a faith, but as the teacher of a creed ; and again, 
to the indisputable fact that the mass of a nation are not easily 
wrought upon by influences gathered in lands so remote as 
Birmah, or in pursuits so seemingly illusory as the saving of hea- 
then souls. The world has read with more emotion of the philan- 
thropy of Florence Nightingale than of the martyrdom of Anne 
Hasseltine ; she who nursed Caucasians at Scutari will be ever 
more familiarly famous than she who ransomed Malays at Ran- 
goon ; the Angelic Yestal of the hospitals upon the Bosphorus 
will enjoy more enduring honors than the Apostle of the zayat 
of Chin-India. 

It has been eloquently said of the memory of Mrs. Judson, 
that "it will be cherished in the churches of Birmah, when 
the pagodas of Gaudama shall have fallen ; when the spires of 
Christian temples shall gleam along the waters of the Irrawaddy 
and the Salwen ; and when the Golden City shall have lifted 
up her gates to let the King of Glory in." 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE 



Charlotte Bronte was the third af six children, and was 
born at Thornton, in the parish of Bradford, Yorkshire, on the 
21st of April, 1816. Four years afterwards, her parents re- 
moved to Haworth, her father, the Rev. Patrick Bronte, having 
been appointed curate of the village. Of the six children, 
the eldest, Maria, was but a few months over six years old ; 
their mother, always delicate, of late an invalid, and now sinking 
under the constant drains upon her strength, kept her room, 
rarely, seeing her infant boys and girls, and unrepiningly await- 
ing the event which was to make them motherless. The father, 
not naturally fond of children, spent his time either in his 
study or by the bedside of his wife, and saw as little of them 
as she. They were thus left to themselves, and their favorite 
occupation was to wander hand in hand over the bleak and 
heathery moors which sloped upward from the parsonage. 

The portion of his society which Mr. Bronte spared them 

was not calculated to inspire them with the geniality natural 

to childhood. He gave them nothing but potatoes for dinner — 

not that he could afford them no other diet, but because he 

wished to bring them up in simple and hardy habits. He sought 

to render them indifferent to dress, and on one occasion seeing 

483 



484 CHAELOTTE BRONTE. 

a row of tiny boots warming before the fire, he committed them 
to the flames, because the legs were made of colored, and conse- 
quently coquettish, leather. He found a silk dress in his wife's 
drawer, in which she had inadvertently left the key, and con- 
sidering it a shade too gay, he cut it into shreds. When he was 
angry, he sternly repressed the rising expletive, but took his 
revenge by firing pistols out of the back-door, as fast as he could 
load them. Mrs. Bronte, who was patiently dying up stairs, 
would endeavor in vain to defend her ears from the annoying 
detonations. The reverend gentleman's wrath seems always to 
have been speechless, and he appears to have argued that his 
duty as a Christian merely required him to suppress his rage in 
its first outward manifestation, allowing him to give it full career 
in any secondary form. Thus, he dispensed with objurgation, 
but he fired pistols instead ; he condemned the unruly member 
to silence, but he crammed the hearth-rug up the chimney in 
compensation, and made the house odious with the smell of 
burning woollen ; he suppressed the hasty word, and then con- 
sidered himself entitled to saw the chairs in halves and render 
his home intolerable. Mrs. Gaskell, the biographer of Charlotte, 
styles this "antique simplicity." 

Mrs. Bronte died in 1821, and the six children became more 
retiring and spiritless than before. The father dined alone, in 
order, we are told, to avoid temptation at the children's table, 
as he was compelled to be very careful of his diet ; but as his 
daughters' only food at that meal consisted of potatoes, it is fair 
to suppose Mr. Bronte influenced by some other cause — perhaps 
misanthropy, perhaps eccentricity. The children had no play- 
mates nor companions whatever. This isolation attached them 
more strongly to each other, while it rendered them precocious 
and old before their time. They had no books suited to their 
age, and solemnly read the London Times with the dimpling and 
pouting mouths sacred from time immemorial to Red Riding 
Hood and Little Bo Peep. 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 485 

In July, 1824, Mr. Bronte sent Maria and Elizabeth to a 
school at Cowan's Bridge, established for the education of clergy- 
men's daughters, and in September of the same year, took 
Charlotte and Emily. This is the school branded under the 
name of Lowood in Jane Eyre. Here the four wretched girls 
endured miseries the consequences of which, upon their minds 
and bodies, were visible in their whole after lives. Their food 
was so loathsome, that they often preferred starving to touching 
it ; their long shivering walks to service on Sundays in winter, 
where they sat chattering in a damp, unwarmed church, and 
eating a cold dinner between the sermons, was to them the most 
comfortless day in the whole trying week ; their sleeping rooms 
were crowded and badly ventilated, and at least one of the 
teachers, whom Jane Eyre impales under the name of Miss 
Scatcherd, was a sour and merciless task-mistress. Maria and 
Elizabeth Bronte sank under the unchristian treatment and the 
foul diet of this seminary. They were taken home by their 
father, who had not been even aware of their illness, and both 
died in the year 1825, one in the spring, the other in the sum- 
mer. Charlotte thus became the eldest daughter and the re- 
sponsible sister at the age of nine years. She returned with 
Emily to Cowan's Bridge immediately after the death of Elizabeth, 
the father being evidently ignorant of the dangerous character 
of the institution. They remained there, however, but a few 
months, being removed before their situation, already precarious, 
became altogether hopeless. 

The household now consisted of the following persons : of 
Mr. Bronte, still solitary and morose ; of his wife's elder sister, 
Miss Branwell, a conscientious and kindly woman, though preju- 
diced and precise, who had been invited to superintend the fa- 
mily ; of Tabby, a deaf and dumb, though attached, old woman ; 
of Patrick Branwell Bronte, a boy of great promise and pre- 
cocious development ; of Emily and Anne, playmates and 
companions, and of Charlotte, the motherly sister of the three 



486 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

motherless children. Their occupations and sports seem to have 
been exclusively sedentary and literary ; they wrote and acted 
plays, edited magazines, and composed romances, tales and 
poems. By the middle of the year 1830, Charlotte, now four- 
teen years old, had accumulated twenty-two volumes of her 
own manuscripts, all of which were carefully labelled, cata- 
logued and preserved. Her writing was so exceedingly minute, 
chat no compositor could have deciphered it without the aid 
of a magnifying glass. The published fac-simile of a page re- 
minds one of the Declaration of Independence scratched upon 
a ten cent piece. A fragment of her composition at this pe- 
riod gives the list of the painters whose works she desired to 
see. Among them were Guido, Titian, Raphael, Michael Angelo, 
Coireggio, da Vinci, Yandyke, Rubens, and Fra Bartolomeo. 
She had at this time, of course, never seen a painting in her 
life to which one could conscientiously apply the name. 

The biographer of Charlotte Bronte gives the following de- 
scription of her personal appearance at the age of fifteen : 
" She was a quiet, thoughtful girl, very small in figure — 
1 stumed ' was the word she applied to herself — but as her limbs 
and head were in just proportion to the slight, fragile body, no 
word in ^ver so slight a degree suggestive of deformity, could 
properly be applied to her ; with soft, thick, brown hair, and pe- 
culiar e} r es, of which I find it difficult to give a description, as 
they appeared to me in her later life. They were large and 
well-shaped : their color a reddish brown ; but if the iris was 
closely examined, it appeared to be composed of a great variety 
of tints. The usual expression w T as of quiet, listening intelli- 
gence ; but now and then, on some just occasion for vivid in- 
terest or wholesome indignation, a light would shine out as 
if some spiritual lamp had been kindled, which glowed behind 
those expressive orbs. I never saw the like in any other hu- 
man creature. As for the rest of her features, they were plain, 
large and ill set ; but, unless you began to catalogue them, you 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 487 

were hardly aware of the fact, for the eyes and power of the 
countenance overbalanced every physical defect ; the crooked 
mouth and the large nose were forgotten, and the whole face 
arrested the attention, and presently attracted all those whom 
she herself would have cared to attract. Her hands and feet 
were the smallest I ever' saw ; when one of the former was placed 
in mine, it was like the soft touch of a bird in the middle of my 
palm. The delicate long fingers had a peculiar fineness of sensa- 
tion, which was one reason why all her handiwork, of whatever 
kind — writing, sewing, knitting — was so clear in its minuteness. 
She was remarkably neat iii her whole personal attire." 

In January of the year 1831, Charlotte Bronte again went to 
school, but not at the deadly seminary of Cowan's Bridge. The 
scene of her studies was now Roe Head, some twenty miles from 
Haworth, an old-fashioned, roomy, cheerful country house, in 
which the Misses Wooler kept a girls' academy. The neighbor- 
hood was romantic, the scenery bright and chequered, the cli- 
mate airy and bracing. Beneath a mouldering stone in a conti- 
guous park, in the midst of secular yew trees, were believed to 
repose the remains of Robin Hood ; not far off was Lady Anne's 
Well, where the lady was long since eaten by wolves — the water 
of the fountain becoming possessed of remarkable medicinal pro- 
perties every Palm Sunday, at six o'clock in the morning ; the 
ghost of a certain reprobate Captain Batt haunted a lane which 
crossed a desolate common, while a bloody footprint, in a bed- 
chamber of Oakwell Hall, lent a fearful interest to that ancestral 
mansion. Indeed, so prevailing did such superstitions seem to 
be at Roe Head and its vicinity, that the pupils of Miss Wooler 
invented a ghost for their own private horror, and located her- — 
for a rustling silk gown betrayed her sex — in an unoccupied 
third story, and often listened to her wailings from the foot of 
the second flight of stairs. 

Miss Wooler was an intelligent, amiable person, and as she 

received but few pupils — never more than ten — was able to treat 
31 



488 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

them as members of her family. She proposed to put Charlotte 
in the second class, as she had not been well grounded in gram- 
mar, but this suggestion caused such a flow of tears that Miss 
Wooler promoted the sensitive pupil at once. The new scholar 
amazed the old ones by her knowledge of poetry, and of the au- 
thors from whom their elegant extracts were taken ; by her 
handwriting, which resembled print ; by her total abstinence 
from animal food ; by the contrast of her extraordinary mental 
powers with her evident physical weakness, and by her interest 
in politics and her violent partisan worship of the Duke of Wel- 
lington. She was an indefatigable student and a favorite with her 
companions, though her constant application made her an unwill- 
ing participator in their sports. She told them ghost stories at 
night, and practised the art of rising to a climax so adroitly, that 
she elicited screams and brought on palpitations at will. She re- 
ceived her first bad mark at the close of her second year — an 
event which deeply agitated the little community. Charlotte 
wept ; Miss Wooler felt that she herself must have been to blame, 
in setting her too long a task ; the scholars were all indignant 
and inclined to mutiny. So the bad mark was withdrawn ; Char- 
lotte dried her tears, and the pupils resumed their allegiance — 
with the exception of one whose sensibilities were so profoundly 
stirred, that during the remaining fortnight of the term she deli- 
berately refused to submit to the regulations of the school, and 
set Miss Wooler at defiance. This steadfast friend is shadowed 
forth in the Jessie Yorke of Shirley ; another of her intimate 
friends, at this period, being faintly portrayed under the name of 
Caroline Helstone. 

Charlotte returned home in the summer of 1832, and resumed 
her superintendence of the household and of her younger sisters. 
They continued their walks over the moors and among the quar- 
ries, rarely visiting the village and as rarely crossing a threshold. 
They taught Sunday school regularly, and in this relation — one 
of preceptress and pvpil, not of companionship on equal terms — 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 489 

consisted the whole of their association with the members of their 
father 's parish. 

A letter written by Charlotte to Caroline Helstone will give 
a just idea of her acquirements and of her powers of discrimina- 
tion at the age of eighteen : "You ask me," she wrote, " to re- 
commend you some books for your perusal. I will do so in as 
few words as I can. If you like poetry let it be first rate ; Mil- 
ton, Shakspeare, Thomson, Goldsmith, Pope — if you will, though 
1 don't admire him — Scott, Byron, Campbell, Wordsworth and 
Southey. Now don't be startled at the names of Shakspeare and 
Byron. Both these were great men, and their works are like 
themselves. You will know how to choose the good, and to avoid 
the evil ; the finest passages are always the purest, the bad are 
invariably revolting ; you will never wish to read them over twice. 
Omit the comedies of Shakspeare and the Don Juan, perhaps the 
Cain, of Byron — though the latter is a magnificent poem — and 
read the rest fearlessly; that must indeed be a depraved mind 
which can gather evil from Henry VIII., from Richard III., from 
Macbeth, and Hamlet, and Julius Caesar. Scott's sweet, wild, ro- 
mantic poetry can do you no harm. Nor can Wordsworth's, nor 
Campbell's, nor Southey's — the greatest part of his at least ; some 
is certainly objectionable. For history, read Hume, Rollin, and 
the Universal History, if you can ; I never did. For fiction, read 
Scott alone ; all novels after his are worthless. For divinity, 
your brother will advise you there. I can only say, adhere to 
standard authors, and avoid novelty." 

In July, 1835, Charlotte Bronte accepted an invitation frrm 
Miss Wooler to assist her in her labors as an instructress. She 
found her new life monotonous and her duties trying, but she 
was, upon the whole, happy, till her health failed and her nervous 
system became decidedly disordered. She fell into despondency, 
and as she herself described it, was irritable and touchy. Miss 
Wooler removed her seminary to another less salubrious situa- 
tion, and this too affected Charlotte's delicate organization. But 



490 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

she still struggled bravely on in the career at heart so distasteful 
to her. The three sisters met at home at Christmas, in 1836. 
They talked over their cares and anxieties, and laid plans for 
the future. On the 29th of December, Charlotte, resolved to 
ask some opinion upon her poetry less prejudiced than that of 
a sister or a father, forwarded a letter to Mr. Southey — the first 
link in a long chain of adventurous correspondence. She received 
his reply three months afterwards, at the academy : it was 
earnest and kind, though depressing, and, as she thought, strin- 
gent ; it dissuaded her from a literary life. For a time, she 
obeyed the unwelcome advice ; but her despondency grew upon 
her, and, in her twenty-first year, she wrote to a friend that 
"her aberrations of memory warned her pretty intelligibly that 
she was getting past her prime." It became evident, in 1838, 
that she was overtasking herself, her physical weakness being 
such that at any sudden noise she turned sick and lost all self- 
control. 

The county physician recommended a return to the beloved 
moors of Haworth and the society of her family as the only 
means of saving her reason or her life. She went home, and 
her health and spirits returned. She refused an offer of mar- 
riage, and spent a year in that painful servitude — the situation 
of governess. She wrote a tale which she afterwards con- 
demned, and no portion of which has ever been published. 
She now spent two years in Brussels, for the purpose of per- 
fecting herself in the French language, and qualifying herself 
for the duties of a teacher. The death of her aunt, by which 
she and her sisters came into the possession of small legacies, 
enabled them to indulge the idea of making such alterations 
in the Haworth parsonage as would adapt it to the requirements 
of an academy. 

Charlotte returned home in January, 1844, alarmed by the 
tidings which reached her of her father's incipient blindness. 
She discussed her plan of opening a girls' school with her sisters, 



• CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 491 

and wrote to the friends she had made during her residence at 
Roe Head and at Brussels. She intended to print her circulars 
as soon as she received the promise of one pupil ; but June, 
July, August, September, and October passed, and not one pupil 
was obtained. Her brother Branwell was ruining his health and 
character in a tumultuous course of London dissipation ; her 
father, nearly sightless, lamented his own misery and his son's 
disgrace in helpless woe ; and she herself spent the bitter days 
in the apprehension of a similar loss, her eyes having been 
severely affected by her long ill health, her early habit of minute 
writing, her sleepless nights and her silent tears. At last, Bran- 
well, discharged from his situation as private tutor, came home, 
a confirmed drunkard and an irreclaimable opium eater. The 
impossibility of continuing his city life drove him to additional 
draughts of liquor and doses of opium, for the purpose of 
drowning recollection, and, perhaps, of stunning conscience. The 
wretched sisters used to lie awake at night listening for the 
report of a pistol, till their eyes and ears became deadened with 
the strain. A ray of light broke over their gloomy path in the 
autumn of 1845. 

At this period Charlotte accidentally took up a manuscript 
volume of verse, by her sister Emily. She read several poeniL 
and thought them terse, vigorous and genuine. Upon this, 
Anne, the youngest, produced a volume of compositions of her 
own, and asked her sister's opinion. Charlotte found them 
sweet, sincere and pathetic. The three resolved to arrange a 
small selection of their poems, and, if possible, get them printed. 
Being averse to personal publicity, they adopted ambiguous 
signatures, not wishing to take masculine names, on account of 
the deceit, nor yet willing to declare themselves women, on 
account of the prejudice with which they conceived authoresses 
were regarded. Charlotte assumed the name of Currer Bell, 
Emily that of Ellis Bell, and Anne that of Acton Bell. Charlotte 
immediately commenced the ungracious task of writing to the 



492 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

London publishers. For a long time she received no answer ; 
at last, in January, 1846, Messrs. Aylott and Jones, of Paternoster 
Row, made an encouraging reply. They agreed, after some 
correspondence, to publish a volume of 250 pages, in long 
primer, at the expense of the authors. Charlotte sent the manu- 
script and an installment of £31 10s., and requested that the 
proofs might be forwarded for the authors' correction. The 
volume was issued, and the public and the press allowed it to 
pass almost unnoticed. The Athenasum of July 4th referred 
briefly to the volume, assigning the highest place to Ellis Bell, 
and styling him "a fine quaint spirit." Currer came next in 
the reviewer's estimation. The sale of the work never indemni- 
fied the sisters for their pecuniary advance, and Messrs. Aylott 
and Jones decided that they could not advantageously continue 
their business relations with the future authors of Jane Eyre, 
Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. 

In the autumn of this year, Charlotte took her father to 
Manchester, to be treated by Dr. Wilson, a distinguished oculist. 
An operation for the cataract, attended with great anxiety 
and some danger, was finally successful. In the midst of 
these cares, and in spite of the failure of their late venture, 
Charlotte and her sisters were preparing for their second literary 
effort. Each of them had written a tale in prose, Charlotte 
contributing The Professor, Emily, Wuthering Heights, and Anne, 
Agnes G-rey. The three were sent forth together, and then they 
were sent forth separately; no publisher would take them in 
any number or in any shape. "The Professor" came back, on 
one occasion, to Charlotte, with a rough refusal, on the day her 
father was to undergo the operation. The three manuscripts 
went begging to every bookselling door in London, to be coldly 
and contemptuously repulsed by all. It was at Manchester, in 
uncomfortable hired apartments, in a monotonous suburb of that 
monotonous town, with her father lying sightless and silent in 
an adjoining room ; with her dissolute, dying brother rendering 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 49o 

the quiet home at Ha worth almost disreputable ; with her sisters 
dependent on her for care and nurture ; with her own health 
shattered, and her hopes and aspirations rudely and bitterly 
quenched, that Charlotte Bronte commenced that master-piece 
of fiction, Jane Eyre. 

She had not advanced far in her work, when her father was 
able to go home to Haworth, his sight and strength gradually re- 
turning. Little, very little is known of the progress of the 
wonderful romance. Charlotte only wrote when the spirit 
prompted, sometimes passing weeks and months in barren un- 
productiveness. Then the cloud would pass from her mind, 
and every moment which could be stolen from her household 
or filial duties . would be eagerly devoted to urging forward 
the precious manuscript. At these times, she was, as it were, 
possessed by her subject, but even then never neglected her 
ordinary domestic routine, and threw down pencil and pa- 
per, and checked the flow of inspiration, to run and peel the 
potatoes for the now inefficient Tabby. She wrote upon small 
scraps of paper, in pencil, using a piece of planed board for 
a desk, afterwards copying her manuscript in a clear, delicate, 
print-like hand. Once or twice a week, in the evening, she 
read what she had written to her sisters, they in turn reading 
their own compositions, in their various stages of advancement. 
It was during a discussion which once ensued, that Charlotte re- 
solved to make her heroine entirely devoid of personal attrac- 
tions. "She told her sisters that they were wrong, even morally 
wrong, in making their heroines beautiful as a matter of course. 
They replied that it was impossible to make a heroine interesting 
on any other terms. Her answer was, 'I will prove to you that 
you are wrong ; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small 
as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours. 7 As the 
work went on, the interest deepened to the writer. "When she 
came to Thornfield, she could not stop. On she went, writing 
incessantly for three weeks ; b\ which time she had carried her 



494 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

heroine away from Thornfield, and was herself in a fever which 
compelled her to pause." 

Thus passed the year 1846, and thus commenced that of 
1847. " The Professor" was still plodding his weary way from 
publisher to publisher ; Mr. Bronte was bearing his inflictions in 
silent stoicism, and sharing his parochial duties with his curate, 
Mr. Nicholls ; Branweli was receiving periodical visits from she- 
riffs' officers, who invariably invited him to pay a little bill or ac- 
company them to York. Charlotte lost her appetite, and de- 
scribed herself as " looking grey, old, worn and sunk," and on 
one occasion wrote to a friend, " My youth is gone like a dream, 
and very little use have I ever made of it. I shall be thirty-one 
next birth-day." But Jane Eyre made good progress, and at 
last Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey found a publisher will- 
ing to assume the risk, though " upon terms somewhat impover- 
ishing to the two authors." A courteous letter received from the 
publishing house of Messrs. Smith and Elder, declining to accept 
" The Professor," but giving sufficient and discriminating rea- 
sons, and accompanying the refusal with an intimation that a 
work in three volumes would meet with careful attention, de- 
cided Charlotte to offer them Jane Eyre. On the 24th of Au- 
gust, she forwarded the manuscript, directing the publishers to 
address, in future, Mr. Currer Bell, under cover to Miss Bronte, 
Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire. The copy was read by a gentle- 
man connected with the firm, and he expressed his admiration in 
terms so strong that Mr. Smith attached no value to his opinion. 
Upon reading it himself, however, he acknowledged that his 
partner's eulogistic language had not been unworthily bestowed. 
The book was accepted, and published on the 16th of October, 
1847. 

The immense success which this fascinating work subsequently 
obtained, was due wholly to the discrimination of the public, and 
in no degree either to the favorable or adverse criticisms of the 
press. Neither the journals nor the magazines seem to have 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 495 

thought it worthy of more than a passing, and often non-com- 
mittal, notice. When the tide of public favor set in, early in 
December, the Examiner awarded it the benefit of a studied 
and very commendatory article. The authoress was slowly and 
gradually acquainted with her good fortune. The following ex- 
tracts from successive letters to her publishers, will show in what 
manner she was affected by the critical notices of her work : 

" The notice in the Literary Gazette seems certainly to have 
been indited in rather a flat mood, and the Athenaeum has a style 
of its own, which I respect, but cannot exactly relish ; still, when 
we consider that journals of that standing have a dignity to retain, 
which would be deranged by too cordial a recognition of the 
claims of an obscure author, I suppose there is every reason to be 
satisfied. 

" The critique in the Spectator gives that view of the book 
which will naturally be taken by a certain class of minds ; 1 
shall expect it to be followed by other notices of a similar 
nature. The way to detraction has been pointed out, and will 
probably be pursued. The notice in the Examiner gratified 
me very much ; it appears to be from the pen of an able man 
who has understood what he undertakes to criticise ; of course 
approbation from such a quarter is encouraging to an author, 
and I trust it will prove beneficial to the work." On December 
10th, she wrote a paragraph which told that her labors had at 
last met with their reward : " Gentlemen, I beg to acknowledge 
the receipt of your letter inclosing a bank post bill, for which I 
thank you." 

The sisters now determined to acquaint their father with 
the successful result of Charlotte's literary efforts. They had 
hitherto concealed from him their labors and correspondence, 
that they might not add their own anxieties to his, though he 
asserted afterwards that he suspected something of the kind, as 
his children were perpetually writing, and not writing letters. 
Charlotte went into his study, taking with her a copy of Jane 



496 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

Eyre, and two reviews, one favorable, one adverse. The follow- 
ing conversation then ensued : 

" Papa, I've been writing a book." 

" Have you, my dear ? " 

" Yes, and I want you to read it." 

"lam afraid it will try my eyes too much." 

" But it is not in manuscript ; it is printed." 

" My dear, you've never thought of the expense it will be! 
It will be almost sure to be a loss, for how can you get a book 
sold ? No one knows you or your name." 

" But, papa, I don't think it will be a loss ; no more will you, 
if you will let me read you a review or two, and tell you more 
about it." 

Thereupon she read him the reviews, and left him to peruse 
the book himself. When he came into tea, he pronounced a 
criticism quite as guarded as that of the Athenaeum ; " Girls," he 
said, ' ' do you know Charlotte has been writing a book, and it is 
much better than likely ?" 

The secret of the authorship of Jane Eyre was now known to 
four persons — the three Brontes and their father. Beyond 
them, not an individual in Great Britain, not even the publishers, 
knew or suspected the truth. But every reader in the land 
sought to penetrate the mystery by twisting the incidents to suit 
this or that locality, or by directly charging some popular 
author with the responsibility of the unacknowledged production. 
The first edition was sold before even the question of sex was 
satisfactorily disposed of, and the third was put to press just as 
popular opinion had settled upon two points ; that Jane Eyre 
was the work of a new and untried hand, and that the writer 
was to be sought for amid the wild scenes described in the 
novel — amid the racy and strongly- characterized inhabitants of 
the North and West Ridings. Still, it does not appear that any 
one in Haworth at this period either felt the interest or took the 
trouble to put two very evident facts together, and draw an 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 497 

inference therefrom: Jane Eyre was by Currer Bell, and for a 
year past the Haworth postman had carried daily batches of 
letters, magazines, reviews, to Miss Bronte, to be delivered to 
Currer Bell. Tillage postmen are usually confidential, and it is 
doing no injustice to the worthy gossips of Haworth to suppose 
them often wondering, with the carrier, who this Currer Bell 
could be. Indeed it is not necessary to indulge in conjecture at 
all, for Charlotte once overheard the postman, at the outset of 
her correspondence, inquire of Mr. Bronte where one Currer Bell 
could be living. On that occasion the letter was not directed to 
the care of Miss Bronte, and doubtless the postman had made a 
similar inquiry at every house he had visited. Yet for two years 
and a half Haworth remained in profound ignorance of the ill- 
guarded secret. 

Charlotte's first visit to London occurred in June, 1848, 
under the following circumstances : — A publisher in America 
had made an arrangement with Messrs. Smith and Elder for 
early sheets of the next work by Currer Bell. The firm subse- 
quently heard that a similar bargain had been made between 
another American and another London house. On inquiry they 
discovered that the publishers of Wuthering Heights, by Emily, 
and of Agnes Grey, by Anne, and who at this time were about 
issuing Anne's second work, " The Tenant of "Wildfell Hall," 
had assured their American correspondent that, to the best of 
their knowledge, all three books were by the author of Jane 
Eyre. They therefore promised him early sheets of Wildfell 
Hall, as a work by Currer Bell. Upon being acquainted with 
these facts, Charlotte and Anne at once resolved to proceed to 
Paternoster Row, and there prove their separate identity. They 
appeared unannounced before Mr. Smith, who, up to this mo- 
ment, was ignorant whether Currer Bell were a man or a woman. 
They were dressed in black, and, at first sight, seemed unattract- 
ive and uninteresting enough. Charlotte produced Mr. Smith's 
letter, at the same time informing him that C irrer and Acton 



408 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

Bell stood before him. When the first surprise was over, Mr. 
Smith began to suggest plans for their amusement during their 
stay, but Charlotte was firm in her resolution to leave London 
as she had entered it, unknown. She went, however, with her 
sister and the ladies of Mr. Smith's family, to the opera, noticing 
that the finely-dressed visitors glanced with a slight and graceful 
superciliousness at her plain, high-made country garments. They 
went to church on Sunday, and to the Royal Academy on Mon- 
day, returning home, well laden with books, on Tuesday. Char- 
lotte writes thus of the consequences of her visit: "A more 
jaded wretch than I looked, it would be difficult to conceive. 
I was thin when I went, but I was meagre indeed when I 
returned, my face looking grey and very old, with strange deep 
lines ploughed in it, my eyes staring unnaturally." They had 
passed in London as the Misses Brown, and appear to have been 
Looked upon as shy and reserved little countrywomen, with not 
much to say. 

Branwell Bronte died, after a profligate and mis-spent life, on 
the 24th of September, 1848. It was the first death in the family 
since Charlotte had been of an age to realize the full import of 
such an event. She gave way at the crisis of her brother's fate, 
sinking beneath an attack of bilious fever at the moment of his 
agony. He had resolved on standing up to die, and met his 
doom in that position. The wretched household bore the dis- 
pensation in meek submission ; but when, three months later, 
Emily sickened and followed Branwell to the tomb beneath the 
old church pavement, then the father and his two remaining 
children lost all courage. It was when Charlotte's soul was thus 
wrung by calamity that the Quarterly Review, containing a flip- 
pant and scornful notice of Jane Eyre, was laid before her. She 
seems to have expressed a silent opinion of the article by placing 
a number of sentences from it in the mouth of a hard and 
vulgar personage in the novel of "Shirley," upon which, in the 
midst of her distresses, she was zealously engaged. 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 499 

Charlotte had thus lost a brother and a bister in the space of 
three months. The year 1849 opened with the premonitions of 
another bereavement. Anne faded and drooped before the rapid 
advance of tubercular consumption. In May, the sea air was 
recommended, and Charlotte took her fast-sinking sister down to 
the sands of Scarborough. Anne died at the sea-side, and Char- 
lotte, construing a few words she had uttered into a wish to that 
effect, buried her — 



" Where the south sun warms the now dear sod, 
Where the ocean hillows lave and strike the steep and turf-covered rock.' 



Charlotte was now alone out of six children who had been born 
to her mother, and out of the four with whom she had grown up 
into life. The first chapter which she wrote after the death of 
Anne she entitled "The Valley of the Shadow of Death." 

Perhaps the desolation of the unhappy woman was cheered 
by the labor of love upon which she was engaged, for Shirley 
Keeldar was intended as a portrait of her sister Emily ; perhaps, 
on the contrary, the realization of her bereavement was rendered 
all the more intense and poignant by the constant presence in 
her mind's eye of her who was forever lost to the outward vision. 
But she wrote steadily on, sitting desolate in the room where 
lately three kindred spirits had communed in sympathy, until, in 
September, the work was done. It was published on the 26th 
of October. The earliest reviews mortified her exceedingly by 
the unanimity with which they agreed that the author must be a 
woman, for she felt that the critic unconsciously lowered his 
standard when judging of the productions of a female pen, and 
she preferred to be measured in a more impartial scale. But the 
secret was divulged during the month following the publication. 
The author could hardly be other than a person thoroughly 
familiar with the scenes in which the story was laid — West York- 
shire, the scene of the Luddite riots. A letter published in a 



500 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

Liverpool paper emitted the suggestion that the writer must, 
from internal evidence, be an inhabitant of Haworth, and added 
that there was but one person in Haworth capable of the effort — 
Miss Bronte. Suspicion being thus directed, and conjecture being 
thus brought to a focus, the mystery was speedily dissolved, and 
when, towards the close of the year, Charlotte made a second visit 
to London, it was to acknowledge the authorship and discard her 
pseudonym. She was forced, much against her will, into what 
appeared to her a whirl of dissipation. Her shy, retiring manners 
never quite left her, and it was with a nervous shrinking and 
hesitation that she met each successive new acquaintance. On her 
return to Haworth, she found that "Airedale, Wharfedale, Calder- 
dale and Ribblesdale," and, indeed, the whole West Riding, were 
rife with the excitement consequent upon the disclosure that the 
wonderful Currer Bell was a Yorkshire clergyman's daughter. 

The peculiar interest attaching to the life of Charlotte Bronte 
ceases, in a great degree, with her assumption of an individual 
existence. She was now involved in the usual round of occupa- 
tions incidental to a literary career. She went again to London, 
where she sat for her portrait, in crayon, to Richmond ; she 
attended the French plays, and saw Rachel ; she admired the 
Crystal Palace ; she attended popular and artistic gatherings j 
she received anonymous tributes of admiration ; she edited a new 
edition of the works of her sisters ; she travelled in Scotland ; 
she heard d'Aubigne* preach, and she visited Miss Martineau at 
Ambleside. She commenced "Villette" late in 1850, but had 
made but little progress at the close of 1851. She wrote with 
evident distaste, constantly interrupted by attacks of sickness and 
by fits of indifference and even disgust. With a work produced 
under such circumstances, she was naturally dissatisfied, and 
besought her publishers to allow her the shelter and protection 
of an incognito, unless such a course should tend to injure their 
interests. She dreaded to see the large advertisement, " New 
Work by Currer Bell," though she acknowledged that these 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 501 

humors were " the transcendentalisms of a retired wretch." She 
seems to have felt that her powers were waning, for she thus 
replied to suggestions for very obvious improvements in Yillette : 
" With many of your strictures I concur : I doubt whether the 
regular novel reader will consider the agony piled sufficiently 
high — as the Americans say — or the colors dashed on to the can- 
vas with the proper amount of daring. Still I fear they must be 
satisfied with what is offered ; my palette affords no brighter tints ; 
were I to attempt to deepen the reds or burnish the yellows, I 
should but botch." The acclamations of delight which welcomed 
the book upon its publication in January, 1853, relieved her from 
an oppressive weight of apprehension. 

Just before she left Haworth for London to correct the proof- 
sheets of Yillette, her father's curate, Mr. Nicholls, who for eight 
years had been an admiring yet silent witness of her virtues, and 
whose respect had ripened into a fervent affection, made known 
to her the state of his feelings. She had not suspected his attach- 
ment, when the avowal was made. It was vehement and 
passionate. Charlotte promised a reply on the morrow, intend- 
ing, if her father should give his consent, to make a favorable 
one. But Mr. Bronte, who disapproved of marriages in general, 
was particularly opposed to this one, and his daughter was glad 
to quiet his agitation and set his fears at rest by engaging to give 
Mr. Nicholls a formal refusal. She did so, without thought for 
herself, though certainly, at the age of thirty-seven, she might 
have been safely left to the dictates of her own judgment, even in 
so serious a matter as matrimony. Mr. Nicholls resigned his 
curacy, and Charlotte, suffering deeply from the pain which 
she had thus been made to inflict, was glad to profit by the 
opportunity presented by the approaching appearance of Yillette, 
to revisit London, and temporarily absent herself from Haworth. 

Mr. Bronte seems to have spent a portion of his time during 
her absence in reflecting upon his own selfishness, and in recon- 
ciling himself to the possibility of his daughter's marriage. By 



502 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

degrees his prejudice was conquered and his obstinacy quelled. 
In April, 1854, Mr. Mcholls paid a visit to the parsonage, and it 
was then agreed that, he should resume the curacy, and in due 
course of time be received as an inmate of the house. Mr. Nich- 
olls proposed the month of July as a fitting period, but Charlotte 
seems to have thought this unnecessarily sudden. She never- 
theless visited London and Leeds for the purpose of making her 
modest purchases, and was quite ready for the grand occasion, 
which was even hastened beyond Mr. Kicholls' hopes, and ap- 
pointed for the 27th of June. On that day, Charlotte Bronte 
was married, Mr. Bronte refusing, at the last moment, to enter 
the church, and declining to give the bride away. This duty 
was performed by Miss Wooler, of Boe Head, one of Charlotte's 
cherished friends ever since her schoolgirl days. The bride and 
bridegroom then departed upon their wedding-tour, and spent 
the midsummer months amid the romantic scenery of Killarney 
and GlengarifF. 

We have but one more paragraph to write in this sad and 
cheerless history. Charlotte Bronte survived her marriage some- 
what less than a year, and on the morning of the 31st of March, 
the bell of the old Haworth church rang forth her passing knell. 
On Easter Sunday, while the Christian world was rejoicing in the 
recurrence of its joyous anniversary, the stricken parent commit- 
ted to the earth the mortal remains of his sixth and last child, 
and then the father and the husband, shutting the door of the 
parsonage upon the ready sympathy of the villagers, sat down in 
silence to bear their grief alone. 

" The story of the Bronte family," says the Bev. Henry Giles, 
" reads like the narrative of a family devoted to mortal doom. 
It is as if the spirit of an olden tragedy were embodied in a mo- 
dern form, as if the Idea of Fate were translated into reality ; as 
if the Myth and Mystery of a Grecian legend were twined into 
English fact. We might truly call that clerical residence ' the 
house of the dying' — as the place around it was literally the 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 503 

place of the Dead If every biography, at the best, seems 

but a tragedy from the beginning, if no life remains beyond the 
present for the soul, then this and every other biography not 
only seems, but is, a tragedy ; a tragedy in the beginning and 
the end ; a tragedy inconsolable and immeasurable in its infinite 
despair." 

The reader of Charlotte Bronte's story will find some com- 
pensation for the pain it can hardly fail to cause him, in the 
consciousness that during her short and blighted career she won 
a name that will never die, and inscribed her signature upon im- 
perishable tablets. She has taken rank as the first female writer 
of fiction that England has produced ; and her works are rated as 
classics even in the magnificent literature of the English tongue. 
It will be no small consolation to those who are saddened by her 
mournful biography, to remember that the works thus conceived 
in woe and brought forth in travail, will be as enduring as the 
language in which they are written, and that she who was denied 
every human blessing and was tried by every temporal affliction, 
died in prssession of two immortalities — one which she inherited 
beyond the grave and one which she had earned for herself on 
earth. Charlotte Bronte is no more ; Jane Eyre shall live for- 
ever. The following pathetic lines reflect the universal feeling 
of tender sympathy for Charlotte Bronte's life-struggle : 

Dead, and the crowd that flattered and caressed her, 

With glance as bright on newer idols turned, 
Voices unchanged, nor tears, nor mourning vesture, 

Tread the same places where her genius burned. 

But eyes that only viewed through earnest story; 

Unnumbered hearts that felt the stirring power, 
Through tears that turned to render light her glory, 

Mourn for The Gifted ! Brief the triumph hour ! 

No costly monument is raised above her, 

With flatt'ring record of a thrilling name — 
Her childhood's grass grows there, but cannot cover 

The living spirit of her woman's fame J 
32 



504 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

No dreamy light through old Italian palace 
Revealed soft pictures to her earnest gaze — 

The Real — a bitter drop within the chalice, 
And the mind's magic — then her changeless bays! 

Like a rare plant, 'neath Heaven's mysterious keeping, 
Amid the stunted trees of moorlands gray, 

While Nature on her dreary watch was sleeping, 
The flowers, unlooked for, blossomed into Day! 

May the low chime that sounds to spirit-hearing, 
Ring softly in a requiem for her soul, 

That lived and listened, when, the mystery clearing, 
Revealed her portion in The Wondrous Whol«. 

On the bleak winds that swept around her dwelling, 

The inspiration like a spirit came, 
And, while her heart with dull unrest was swelling, 

Fused its rich metal in a living flame. 

And her life's genius, waking from his slumbers, 
Dropped stars of thought around her lowly feet, 

Whisp'ring, " All life is cast in mystic numbers, 

Speak thy soul's prompting, make thy work complete V 

With strong, unquestioning faith, the spell upon her, 
She launched her vessel on the world's broad sea, 

Rich with strange treasures, and the pilot, Honor 
Mooring it bravely, where great ships should be! 



Note. — In September, 1879, the ocean cable flashed the news that the old Haworth Church, so identi- 
fied with Charlotte Bronte and her family, was to be demolished ; the congregation having worshipped 
in it for the last time. 



GEORGE ELIOT. 



The year 1819 was to bring into the world the greatest woman 
novelist of the century. Mary Ann Evans, afterward known as 
"George Eliot/' was born November 22d, at Asbury Farm, in 
Warwickshire, England. When the child was a few months old 
the family moved to Griff, a mile from the birth-place, and here 
the girl lived till she was twenty years of age. She is said to 
have been a very sensitive child, and at five years of age, her 
mother being in poor health, she was sent to a boarding school 
with her sister, and here she remained four or five years. She 
was then taken to a large school at Nuneaton. She early dis- 
played a fondness for reading, and one of the Waverley novels 
being loaned to her sister she began to read it, but the book being 
returned before she had finished it, she set about writing the story 
out for herself as far as she could remember it. 

At the next school, at Coventry, she surpassed the other pupils 
in their studies and was regarded as a girl with a future before 
her. In 1836 her mother died and the novelist wrote in after life, 
"I began at sixteen to be acquainted with the unspeakable grief 
of a last parting, in the death of my mother." 

A few months after her mother's death, her sister marrying, 
Mary Ann took upon herself the duties of caring for her father's 

(505) 



506 GEORGE ELIOT. 

house and looking after the welfare of her brother. Her love of 
books had increased, her desire for learning was not interfered 
with by her newly assumed cares, and she now had lessons in 
French, German and Italian, while music in which she afterward 
excelled was studied with passionate fondness. Later she took 
up Greek, Latin, Spanish and Hebrew. She wished greatly for 
a collegiate course, but this was denied her, women at that date 
being an unknown quantity in college life. She says in Daniel 
Deronda, " You may try, but you can never imagine what it is to 
have a man's force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery 
of being a girl." At twenty she was reading the Life of Wilder- 
force, Josephus, Spencer's Fairy Queen, Milton, Bacon, Words- 
worth — who was always a favorite with her. 

About this time her father gave up the farm and moved to 
Faleshill, near Coventry. It was this living in the country and 
getting near to nature, that was to play so large a part in the 
novels which " George Eliot" was to give to the world, novels in 
which country life and country people are re-produced to per- 
fection. 

The young girl's evangelical views were very strict, but through 
the influence of some author friends she gave up some of these 
views, though she was always a sincere lover of the Bible. 

In 1844, Marian, as she was now called, began the translation 
of Strauss' Life of Jesus. For nearly three years she gave it all 
the time she had at her command, and received for it when it was 
finished the munificent sum of one hundred dollars. The book 
was declared to be "a faithful, elegant and scholarly translation 

. . . . word for word, thought for thought, and sentence 
for sentence." Strauss himself was much pleased with it. 

Her father was now in failing health, and they visited the Isle 
of Wight; a wonderful outing for her. Shortly after her return 
home she met Ralpho Waldo Emerson. "I have seen Emerson," 
she writes, "the first man I have ever seen." 



GEORGE ELIOT. 507 

Her father died in May, 1849, and, worn out with the care of 
nursing, his daugher was ordered a rest. She visited Paris, Milan, 
the Italian lakes, and finally rested some months in Geneva. As 
her means were limited she tried to sell her Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica at half-price in order to get the money for music lessons. 
She was now reading the socialistic themes of Proudhon, Bous- 
seau, and others. 

On her return to England she met Chapman, the editor of the 
Westminster Revieiv, and Mackay, whose Progress of the Intellect 
she had just written up in review. Mr. Chapman appears to have 
been impressed by her learning and ability, for he offered her the 
position of assistant editor on his magazine, whose contributors 
were Froude, Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, and other men of equal 
prominence. 

Miss Evans accepted the position, and went to live with Mr. 
Chapman's family in London. Here she met the foremost writers 
of the day. 

She was now thirty-two years of age. Never beautiful, her 
head was massive, her eyes blue-gray ; her mouth was sympathetic ; 
her chin strong ; her face pale ; her voice soft and low — " the voice 
of a soul that had once lived in an iEolian harp," as she described 
Dorothea's in Middlemarch. 

The characteristics of her face made her later in life resemble 
Dante and Savonarola. Mathilde Blina says of a resemblance 
intellectually, that she was like Socrates "in her manner of 
eliciting whatsoever capacity for thought might be latent in the 
people she came in contact with." 

On the Review, her heart and hands were now full of work. 
Her first article was a review of Carlyle's Life of John Sterling, 
a masterly piece of work. While connected with the magazine, 
Herbert Spencer introduced her to George Henry Lewes, a man 
of conversational powers, who had written the exhaustive History 
of Philosophy, a couple of novels, and was a contributor to the 



508 GEORGE ELIOT. 

reviews. At first she did not like him. But she writes : " Mr. 
Lewes is kind and attentive, and has quite won my regard, after 
having had a good deal of my vituperation. Like a few other 
people in the world he is a good deal better than he seems. A 
man of heart and conscience wearing a mask of flippancy." 

She tired of the hard work imposed by her editorship, and was 
worn by the headaches with which she was afflicted all her life, 
and in 1854 she resigned her position, after having done a great 
quantity of writing, and went to Germany with Mr. Lewes, 
forming a union which many who loved her had to acknowledge 
was a great mistake of a great life. Lewes was collecting the 
material for his Life of Goethe, and this took them to Goethe's 
old home at Weimar, and she writes that standing amid the 
personal belongings of the sage, his books, his papers, a one 
breathes deeply, and the tears rush to one's eyes." While in 
Germany she met Liszt, and "for the first time in her life 
beheld real inspiration — for the first time heard the true tones of 
the piano." The famous sculptor, Ranch, called upon her, and 
" won our hearts by his beautiful person and the benignant and 
intelligent charm of his conversation." 

Both writers were working hard. George Eliot was doing an 
article on Weimar for Frazer's Magazine, an article for the 
Westminster Review, at the same time translating Spinoza's 
Ethics. Money was very necessary about this time, for Lewes 
was not well, and he had large family expenses in providing for 
his three sons whose mother was confined in a hospital for the 
insane. 

"Our lives are intensely occupied," writes George Eliot, "and 
the days are far too short." 

Every spare moment they were reading, and the number of 
massive books they got acquainted with is amazing. 

On returning to England they went to the seashore, that Mr. 
Lewes might complete his Seaside Studies. 



GEORGE ELIOT. 509 

And now George Eliot was to begin her writing of fiction. 
She was thirty-seven years of age, matured in thought, and she 
had read extensively, and was expanded in her views on life. It 
was at the advice of Lewes that the first attempt was made. He 
had said: "You have wit, description, and philosophy. These 
go a good way towards the production of a novel. " It had also 
always been a vague dream with her to write a novel, but as the 
years went on she had lost hope of ever being able to do it, "just 
as I desponded about everything else in my future life. I always 
thought I was deficient in dramatic power, both of construction 
and dialogue, but I felt I should be at my ease in the descriptive 
parts." After she had written a portion of Amos Barton (a story 
which Mrs. Oliphant, in her Victorian Age of English Literature, 
declares she never equalled in any of her subsequent works), she 
read it to Mr. Lewes. In it occurred the scene describing the 
death of Milly. 

"We both cried over it," she says. 

The story was sent to Blackwood, signed "George Eliot — the 
first name chosen because it was that of Lewes, the latter, "because 
it pleased her fancy." 

Lewes wrote to Blackwood that the story was by a friend of his. 
Blackwood accepted the tale, but made some discouraging com- 
ments, so that the author refused to try further. Lewes wrote 
him that such was the case, and the editor replied that there was 
so much to be said in praise of the little tale, that he would like 
more from the same pen, and enclosed a check for two hundred 
and fifty dollars. 

George Eliot then wrote Mr. OilfiVs Love Story and Janet's 
Repentance. 

Much interest was expressed as to the personality of the author. 
Thackeray was loud in his praises, and Arthur Helps said : " He 
is a great writer" — for no one thought this the work of a woman, 
except Dickens. These three tales bound together under the 



510 GEORGE ELIOT. 

caption of Scenes from Clerical Life, had an immediate sale 
Jane Welsh Carlyle called it a "human book, written out of the 
heart of a live man, not merely out of the brain of an author, full 
of tenderness and pathos, without a scrap of sentimentality, of 
sense without dogmatism, of earnestness without twaddle — a book 
that makes one feel friends at once and for always with the man 
or woman who wrote it." 

Lewes said : " Her fame is beginning." 

George Eliot became happier, though despondency claimed a 
large part of her nature, as it so frequently does in the case of 
those whose pen-work is from their own brains and whose creations 
are of fancy. 

She said that expecting disappointments was the only form of 
hope with which she was familiar. After she had fully enjoyed 
a short season of gratification for the applause bestowed upon her 
first venture, she began a larger story. 

This was Adam Bede. The germ of this novel was an anecdote 
told her by her Aunt, Elizabeth Evans, who has come down to 
us as the Dinah Morris of the book. An ignorant woman had 
killed her child and refused to own that she had done so. Mrs. 
Evans, who was a Methodist preacher, stayed with her all of one 
night, praying for her and beseeching her to confess the truth. 
At last the poor girl burst into tears, and told that she was the 
murderer. Mrs. Evans went beside her in the cart that bore her 
to the place of execution, and ministered to the unhappy creature 
to the last. 

Blackwood, when he saw the first sheets of the novel, said with 
satisfaction: "That will do." George Eliot and Mr. Lewes went 
to Munich, Dresden, and Vienna about this time, and in these 
places much of the book was written. When it was finished the 
author wrote across it Jubilate. " To my dear husband, George 
Henry Lewes, I give the manuscript of a work which would 



GEORGE ELIOT. 511 

never have been written but for the happiness which his love has 
conferred on my life." 

Fame came with Adam Bede. According to accounts the 
reading world seems to have gone wild over it. John Murray, 
the publisher, said there had never been such a book. Charles 
Reade, himself then in the zenith of his fame as a novelist, said 
of Lizabeth's account of her coming home with her husband from 
their marriage, that it was the finest thing since Shakespeare. 
Workmen begged for a cheap edition of the tale. All this popu- 
larized the book to quite an unprecedented degree. 

George Eliot was deeply grateful, and also grateful for the four 
thousand dollars she received for the work and the copyright for 
four years. They now rented a house at Wandworth, and the 
days of poverty and drudgery seemed at an end. 

The world had not discovered who " George Eliot " was up to 
diis time. But as a man by the name of Liggins claimed to be 
the author so much admired, and tried to borrow money for his 
needs on the score that his publishers had not paid him, the name 
of the real author of Adam Bede was made public. So great was 
the sale of the book that Blackwood gave an additional four 
thousand dollars to the author. The work was translated into 
French, German, and Hungarian. Mr. Lewes now issued his 
Physiology of Common Life, but the pecuniary returns for it 
were small. 

An American publisher offered George Eliot six thousand 
dollars for a story, but this she was obliged to decline as she was 
writing the Mill on the Floss for Blackwood. For this she 
received ten thousand dollars for the first edition, beside large 
sums from Harper & Brothers for the use of it, and from Tauch- 
nitz for the German reprint. 

She and Mr. Lewes went at once to Italy, spending several 
months in Florence, where she made her studies for her famous 
novel, Romola, for which Mrs. Oliphant appears to have one of 



512 GEORGE ELIOT. 

the few dissenting voices, declaring it to be of shreds and patches 
except as to the principal male character, which is a study of 
deceit and villainy quite unsurpassed. The work necessary to 
become familiar with the life of the fifteenth century, which is the 
time of the story, was simply enormous; the reading, the assimi- 
lation of the reading, the thought. "I began Romola a young 
woman," George Eliot told Mr. Cross years afterward, "I finished 
it an old woman." 

She spent a year and a half writing the book, and the Cornhill 
Magazine gave her thirty-five thousand dollars for it. 

She purchased "The Priory," Regent's Park, which she made 
her home, to which she welcomed her friends. After much 
reading of Mill, Fawcett, and other writers on political economy, 
she wrote Felix Holt, for which Blackwood gave her twenty-five 
thousand dollars. It is the novel least liked of all she wrote. 

Mr. Lewes relieved her in every way possible, but her toil was 
great and she was much worn, so she went this year, 1866, to 
Germany for rest. 

In 1868 she published The Spanish Gypsy, which she consid- 
ered her best work, though its poetry is not of the highest order, 
and it is not as a poet upon which the fame of the author, of 
Adam Bede will rest. 

Middlemarch, which was written in 1872, made a sensation, 
though it is so different in style from the earlier books that are 
filled with freshness of imagination and where the humor is so 
spontaneous. 

A house surrounded by several acres of ground was bought in 
Surrey, and here amid trees and breadth of air went the now 
famous authoress. In 1876 she published Daniel Deronda, for 
the preparation of which, it is said, she read a thousand volumes. 
Be this true or not, the list of books, given in her life by Mr. 
Cross, of her reading in these years, is something prodigious. 

In Surrey they lived a happy, quiet life, seeing such friends as 



GEORGE ELIOT. 513 

the Tennysons, the Du Maimers, and Sir Henry and Lady 
Holland. The pair were growing older now, and Lewes had 
been in poor health for some time. 

In November, 1878, the world heard of the death of Mr. Lewes. 
This loss could not be calculated to George Eliot. Their union 
had been one of affection, sympathy, and congeniality. She said : 
"I live not only to be loved, but to be told that I am loved," and 
Lewes had worshiped her. He had said: "I owe Spencer a debt 
of gratitude. It was through him that I learned to know Marian 
— to know her was to love her, and since then my life has been 
a new birth. To her I owe all my prosperity and all my happi- 
ness. God bless her ! " Her own happiness seemed far enough 
away from her when she was left alone; fame and the means she 
had gained meant little to her when she stood without the affec- 
tionate support of the man who had been the first to urge her to 
attempt the work that brought her all that she possessed. 

John Walter Cross, at one time a wealthy banker in New York, 
had for a long while been an intimate friend of the two. He was 
many years younger than George Eliot, and now he came to her 
in her hour of need and helped her. A George Henry Lewes 
scholarship was to be offered to Cambridge, of a thousand dollars 
yearly, for the benefit of some worthy student "of either sex," in 
memory of the man she had loved. " I want to live a little time," 
she said, "that I may do certain things for his sake." 

Her old despondency gained sway and her sorrow bowed her. 
She brooded over her loss, and all but that seemed very far away 
from her, and far away were the applauding multitudes, the great 
unknown to whom her name had become a household word. 

The Cross family labored faithfully to win her away from her 
sorrow. But Mr. Cross' mother, to whom he had been most 
devoted, died, and he, too, was alone, though his loneliness was a 
new link in the chain that held him in the estimation of as lonely 
a woman. They read Dante together, and gradually Mr. Cross 



514 GEORGE ELIOT. 

found that his heart was deeply touched by this woman so much 
older than himself. It was a high order of love, the love of 
mind for mind, of soul for soul. 

George Eliot resisted ; she was not above recognizing the 
disparity of their ages, though the world's opinion of that 
mattered little. 

At length she yielded. " I shall be a better, more loving 
creature than I could have been in solitude," she said. "To be 
constantly, lovingly grateful for this gift of a perfect love is the 
best illumination of one's mind to all the possible good there may 
be in store for man on this troublous little planet." 

They were married May 6, 1880, a year and a half after the 
death of Mr. Lewes, whose son Charles gave away the bride. 
The couple went at once to Italy. "Marriage has seemed to 
restore me to my old self," she wrote. "To feel daily the loveli- 
ness of a nature near me, and to feel grateful for it, is the fountain 
of tenderness and strength to endure." She had a severe spell 
of illness, and afterward wrote to a friend, "I have been cared for 
by something much better than angelic tenderness. . . . . 
If it is any good for me that my life has been prolonged till now, 
I believe it is owing to this miraculous affection that has chosen 
to watch over me." 

In this new joy she never forgot Mr. Lewes. In looking upon 
the Grande Chartreuse she said, " I would still give up my own 
life willingly if he could have the happiness instead of me." 

On their coming back to London they took for their winter 
house No. 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. It was a plain brick structure, 
rather large, and entirely comfortable. Here the days were to 
glide along happily, the house the mecca of many, its mistress 
interested in all great subjects, helping on with a liberal hand the 
higher education of women, and assisting many a struggling 
author and unfortunate friend from the bounty that had accrued 
to her from her novels. Mr. Cross and she took the Bible for 



GEORGE ELIOT. 515 

their first reading of the day, she especially enjoying Isaiah, 
Jeremiah, and the Epistles of St. Paul. Then they read whatever 
was best in English, French, and German literature. She called 
Milton her half-god. Her husband says of her, " She had a 
limitless persistency in application." Her health had become 
greatly improved, and hopes were entertained that she would 
again give the world a splendid novel. She was urged to write 
her autobiography, but she said, " The only thing I should care 
much to dwell on would be the absolute despair I suffered from 
of ever being able to achieve anything. No one could ever have 
felt greater despair, and a knowledge of this might be a help to 
some other struggler." 

She could well have paused and known that English woman- 
hood of her time had produced no such genius as she ; that her 
tenderness and spiritual insight and humor make her unique 
among women writers ; that she revealed all the tender grace and 
simple delicacy of feeling, intellectual nobility, and purity of 
heart that go to make one of the most fascinating and sympathetic 
personalities the century had known. 

Friday afternoon, December 17, 1880, she went to see a per- 
formance in Greek by Oxford students, and the next day attended 
a concert at St. James' Hall. She took cold, and on Monday 
had treatment for sore-throat. On Wednesday evening, when 
the physicians came, she whispered to her husband, " Tell them I 
have great pain in the left side." This was the last she spoke. 
She died on the 22d. 

She had loved knowledge to the end. " My constant groan 
is that I must leave so much of the greatest writing which the 
centuries have sifted for me unread for want of time." 

For those who differed with her, her charity was broad and 
kind. " The best lesson of tolerance we have to learn is to 
tolerate intolerance," and she " looked forward to the time when 
the impulse to help our fellows shall be as immediate and as 



516 GEOKGE ELIOT. 

irresistible as that which I feel to grasp something firm if I am 
falling." 

She was buried in Highgate Cemetery, London. The grave is 
marked by a high granite shaft. The inscription begins with 
three lines of one of her greatest poems : 

" may I join the choir invisible 
Of those immortal dead who live again 
In minds made better by their presence." 

Next her grave is a long stone slab. On it is the name of 
George Henry Lewes. 



MARTHA WASHINGTON 



Maetha, the eldest child of Colonel John Dandridge, was born 
June 21, 1731, at Williamsburg, Virginia. At a reasonable age 
she made her debut in the aristocratic society of her State. She 
was of small stature, and slight in early life, with light brown 
hair and hazel eyes. She was married to Daniel Parke Custis in 
1749, and went to the White House, on the York River, and here 
and in the Six Chimney House in Williamsburg was spent the 
years of a brief married life. Four children were born to the 
couple, two of them dying in early childhood. Martha and John 
Parke Custis survived their father, who died in the spring of 1757. 

From this time till the meeting with Colonel Washington in 
May, 1758, the widow administered the estate of her husband with 
rare ability; young and handsome and reputed the wealthiest 
widow in Virginia. 

At the time of her meeting with Washington the widow was 
fully aware of his military renown, his high breeding and his 
advantages of birth, and he appeared before her in all the vigor 
of superb manhood, standing six feet two inches in height. 

A quaint "Life of Washington," by M. L. Weems, formerly 
Rector of Mount Vernon Parish, thus refers to "the accomplished 
Mrs. Martha Custis, the beautiful and wealthy widow of Mr. John 

(517) 



518 MARTHA WASHINGTON. 

Custis. Her wealth was equal at least to one hundred thousand 
dollars. But her beauty was a sum far larger still. It was not 
the boast of a fine skin, which time so quickly tarnishes, nor 
of those short-lived roses which sometimes wither almost as soon 
as blown. But it sprung from the heart, from the divine and 
benevolent affections which spontaneously gave to her eyes, her 
looks, her voice and her manners, that I could never look on her 
without exclaiming with the poet, 

' She was nearest heaven of all on earth I knew ; 
And all but adoration was her due.' " 

The story of Colonel Washington's brief soldierly wooing has 
often been told. The Colonel visited Mrs. Custis in her own 
house, and being rowed across the river by a slave asked if the 
mistress was at home. " I reckon you'se de man what's 'spected," 
was the answer. The engagement took place during this visit, the 
lovers not meeting again until close on to their marriage in the 
following January. The only love-letter that has come down to 
us is dated July 20, 1758. 

"We have begun our march to the Ohio. A courier is starting 
for Williamsburg, and I embrace the opportunity to send a few 
words to one whose life is now inseparable from mine. Since that 
happy hour when we made our pledges to each other, my thoughts 
have been going continually to you as to another self. That All- 
powerful Providence may keep us both in safety is the prayer of 
your faithful and ever affectionate friend, 

6. Washington." 

As soon as his duties would admit of his doing so, Washington 
took his wife and her two children to Mount Vernon. Chroniclers 
have it that the master of Mount Vernon rose at four in the morn- 
ing, and accomplished a day's work while others slept. Mrs. 
Washington not to be outdone by him, gave many of her house- 
hold orders before breakfast, and so secured leisure for her 



MARTHA WASHINGTON. 519 

gardening, her needlework, her charities, and, more than all, for 
the education of her children, and, besides this, open house was 
kept at Mount Vernon, and the mistress required all the time she 
could command. 

Into this pleasant life, full of business and the happy exchange 
of neighborly courtesies, there crept the murmurs of the public 
discontent. First the Stamp Act, then Patrick Henry's voice, 
and resistance were in the air. 

Then little Martha Custis died, and Mrs. Washington's affec- 
tions were centred in her only son, who married Eleanor Calvert, 
February 2, 1774. The mutterings and discontent against the 
mother country had grown louder and more unequivocal. 

At a time when prudent folk held back and every step seemed 
made in the dark, Mrs. Washington showed her confidence in her 
husband. She must have been beset by many fears, when, in 
September, 1774, he left her to go to the General Congress in 
Philadelphia, but she said to the gentlemen who were to accom- 
pany him, " I hope you will all stand firm ; I know George will." 

To the next Congress, May, 1775, Washington set out, in his 
uniform of a Virginia Colonel. This revealed the attitude of his 
mind. He writes from Philadelphia to his wife, June 18th: "It 
has been determined in Congress that the whole army raised for 
the defence of the American cause shall be put under my care." 
He also hoped that he should return to his wife in the fall. This 
was not to be. 

In October Lund Washington, who had been left in care of 
Mount Vernon, wrote of the fear that Mrs. Washington was in 
danger of being carried off; the idea of the despoiling of Mount 
Vernon as the residence of the leader of the rebellious army 
harrowed Washington's wife. She was in New Kent County 
when she received the message of her husband asking her to join 
him at Cambridge. She went at once, being called Lady Wash- 
33 



520 MARTHA WASHINGTON. 

ington now for the first time. She reached Cambridge in 
December. 

A little while later, while the British were junketing in Boston, 
Washington, in a single night, fortified Dorchester Heights, which 
commanded the harbor, and checkmated Howe. On the 20th of 
March he drove the enemy to their boats and entered Boston. 
Leaving Putnam in command, he proceeded to New York. Mrs. 
Washington remained several weeks in Cambridge, and then set 
out for New York. In May she was in Philadelphia undergoing 
inoculation for smallpox. It was during her stay in Philadelphia 
that there occurred the Tryon plot against the General's life. 

In the years between 1776 and 1783 she was at her own home, 
watching and waiting for tidings from the seat of war, or was 
with her husband during the winters in camp life. 

There is a picturesque story that she joined her husband at his 
headquarters near Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, whence she rode to 
Valley Forge upon a pillion behind him. She was full of care 
and thought for the soldiers during this awful winter, and often 
the poor worn troops said when she appeared among them, "God 
bless Lady Washington." 

Humors of the alliance with France lightened the darkness of 
these troubled days, but the official notification of the ratification 
of the treaty did not reach camp till May. A day of rejoicing 
and thanksgiving followed the news. It is said that when the 
General and his wife retired from the religious services, mingled 
with cheers for the King of France and the thirteen States and 
the General, there were also shouts of "Long live Lady 
Washington!" 

In December, 1779, the Washingtons were at Morristown, 
where the General might watch the movements of the enemy in 
and around New York City. While his wife kept him company 
the General cultivated a social spirit in camp, and headquarters 
became a point to which the young officers tended. In all her 



MARTHA WASHINGTON. 521 

relations with these officers Madam Washington was kind and 
motherly, but her heart went out to the common soldiers, who had 
more to contend with, and to whom few rays of joy reached in 
the cold and bitter seasons. 

In September, 1781, Washington entered his own house for the 
first time since he had assumed command of the army in the 
spring of 1775. His wife's joy at having him in the familiar 
scenes was of brief duration, as in three days he set out for 
Williamsburg to complete the business which had brought him 
South, and which culminated in the surrender of Yorktown. 

Close upon the steps of the messenger who brought to Mount 
Vernon the news of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis came 
another messenger telling that John Custis, who had for some 
time acted as aid to his stepfather, was dying of camp fever. His 
wife and his mother reached his bedside only in time to soothe 
his last hours. He left four children, three daughters and a son, 
and the two younger (Eleanor, between two and three years of 
age, and her brother, the General's namesake, a baby six months 
old) were adopted by the General, and were ever after treated as 
own children of the house. 

Although the victory at Yorktown virtually ended the war, 
Washington found that there was much important business to do. 
He and his wife set forth for Philadelphia, hailed all along the 
route with the fondest demonstrations. Philadelphia blazed with 
illuminations. 

The illustrious pair remained for some months in the City of 
Brotherly Love. But "I can truly say, " wrote Washington from 
Newburgh, June, 1782, "that the first wish of my soul is to re- 
turn speedily into the bosom of that country which gave me 
birth, and in the sweet enjoyment of domestic happiness and the 
company of a few friends to end my days in quiet." And surely 
his wife's home-loving soul echoed this wish. 

There was to be a year and a half of camp life even after this 



522 MARTHA WASHINGTON. 

letter was written. While the Washingtons were at Newburgh a 
brilliant fete was given at West Point in honor of the birth of the 
French Dauphin. "General Washington, with a dignified air, 
having Mrs. Knox for his partner, carried down a dance of 
twenty couples in the arbor on the green grass." The following 
winter Mrs. Washington was again at Newburgh helping to cele- 
brate the anniversary of the alliance with France. " The last 
days of camp life, although full of perplexities to AVashington, 
in which his wife fully sympathized, were illumined by the 
joyful assurance of a great w T ork accomplished, and the prospect 
of a speedy return to home and friends.' , 

On the 19th of December, 1783, after an affecting leave of his 
officers, the Commander-in-Chief reached Annapolis, where he 
was met by his wife, w r ho had driven from Mount Vernon. Wash- 
ington's arrival at Annapolis was heralded by the firing of cannon 
and by general rejoicing. The following day a solemn scene 
took place in the State House. General Washington, at his own 
request, and in the presence of Congress, resigned the commission 
intrusted to him in Philadelphia more than eight years before. 

Mrs. Washington, not unmoved, sat in the gallery, surrounded 
by an audience. 

On Christmas evening the General and his wife reached home. 
The delight of the servants at meeting once more the beloved 
master and mistress was great. The next day these servants were 
presented the "Christmas box " which their mistress never forgot 
to give them. 

There was now a spell of the dear home life so cherished by 
the General and his wife, visited by friends, statesmen, diplo- 
mats ; " soldiers, native and foreign, merchants, sculptors, painters, 
and divines all flocked to this home upon the Potomac." Mrs. 
Washington's grandchildren, George Washington Parke Custis, 
whom his adopted parents always called " Washington," and his 
sister, Nelly, were the "children of Mount Vernon," though their 



MARTHA WASHINGTON. 523 

elder sisters, Elizabeth and Martha, also came frequently. There 
were always young people in the house, nephews and nieces, 
children of friends. Lafayette, the adored of Americans, was 
also a visitor more than once, honored as no other guest. 

Although his wife had never urged Washington to have done 
with what he considered his duty to his country, she was solicitous 
when he set out for the convention of the States, held in Phila- 
delphia, May, 1787. He was not well, having suffered from "a 
rheumatic complaint for six months, and his mind was oppressed 
by the illness of his mother and the recent death of his brother, 
who was, he says, ' the intimate companion of my youth and the 
friend of my ripened age.' " 

The acceptance of the honors and duties of President of the 
United States meant for Washington the giving up of much that 
was dear to him, that quiet life for which he always yearned, and 
he feared his ability to compete with the many difficulties in store 
for him. 

Mrs. Washington did not accompany her husband upon his 
journey to New York, which was then the capital. The inaugu- 
ration ceremonies were over when she joined her husband and 
the house furnished. She had the difficult task of arranging the 
social functions of the executive establishment. While those sur- 
rounding her were busy discussing the question as to whether the 
President should be addressed as his highness, his serene highness, 
or his excellency, and whether the first officer of the land should 
have a court or the simple ceremonies consistent with a republic, 
Mrs. Washington quietly mapped out her social duties according 
to her own ideas of propriety. 

She laid aside her homespun garments, and appeared in 
gorgeous stuffs as befitted the wife of the President. She was 
now fifty-seven years of age, noble and dignified, with a beauty 
which naturally was not that which characterized her girlish days 
and young womanhood, but vastly attractive in its own way. 



524 MARTHA WASHINGTON. 

Descriptions are not wanting of Lady Washington's Friday even- 
ing receptions, where there was plum cake with tea and coffee and 
pleasant conversation, and all ending at the early hour of nine. 
She would rise at this hour and say with graciousness, " The 
General always retires at nine, and I usually precede him." 

The exactions of official life, or home-sickness, caused Lady 
Washington to pine. She disliked the restraints of her life and 
the continuous rather stiff courtesy w T as irksome to her, but she 
never failed of her observance of the rules she had laid down for 
herself when her husband went into office. 

A State dinner w T as given once a week. At one of these, 
Mrs. Robert Morris found the cream in the trifle so bad that she 
warned the President against it. Immediately, she afterward said 
with glee, " Mrs. Washington ate a whole heap of it." 

Mr. Maclay speaks of the President and Mrs. Washington as 
seated " opposite each other in the middle of the table with 
the two secretaries, one at each end." Mr. Robertson says that 
while painting the President's portrait he was presented to Mrs. 
Washington, " whose easy, polished, and familiar gaiety and 
ceaseless cheerfulness " secured a pleasant expression on the face 
of the sitter for the portrait. 

Mr. William S. Johnston also speaks of the pleasant home-like 
atmosphere created by the First Lady of the Land : " I now 
really believe there are some good old w r omen," he writes. 

Theatre-going would appear to have been a favorite recreation 
of the Washingtons both in New York and in Philadelphia. 

On New Year's Day, 1790, the principal gentlemen of New 
York called on the President, and Mrs. Washington reported 
that nothing pleased her husband so much as the pleasant^reet- 
ings of these men. 

That same evening Mrs. Washington held a drawing-room. 
Here the dignified hostess in her velvet gown over a white satin 
petticoat, her hair rolled not nearly so high as that of Mrs. 



MARTHA WASHINGTON. 525 

Robert Morris, who stood near her, was courtesy and elegance at 
the same time. She was surrounded by a number of ladies, the 
President standing by her side or moving about exchanging 
words with the guests. 

This was the only New Year's Day spent by the Washingtons 
in New York. In July it was decided to establish the seat of 
government on the Potomac, while Congress was to sit in Phila- 
delphia for the next ten years. 

With regard to the furnishing of the Philadelphia house, Mrs. 
Washington was saved much care by the forethought of the 
General. 

The chariot with six horses, in which Washington drove to the 
Senate while in Philadelphia, was the most elegant of his equi- 
pages. It was built in London for Governor John Penn, from 
whom it was bought for the President's wife. It was painted 
cream color, decorated with gilt medallions, and by some persons 
was considered " too pompous for a republican President." In 
this chariot Mrs. Washington often drove out with two postilions 
and a servant on horseback. 

A breakfast has been described at the President's : Mrs. Wash- 
ington making the tea and coffee at her end of the table, every- 
thing conducted with simplicity; one servant without livery being 
all there was in attendance. This is a picture of the Washingtons 
in private life, though at the State dinners there were considerable 
style and elegance. During her long residence in Philadelphia, 
surrounded by old friends, Mrs. Washington seems to have led a 
life more congenial to her tastes than while in New York. 

Old diaries and letters have given us pictures of the old-time 
social life, and it was very sincere and attractive. While in 
Philadelphia Mrs. Washington had with her her older grand- 
daughters and some of her nieces, and while they were with her 
there was naturally much gaiety and cheerfulness. 

Twice while they were in Philadelphia there were epidemics 



526 MARTHA WASHINGTON. 

of yellow fever. Much anxiety was felt by the President's friends 
during the visit of the scourge in 1793, but he could not be 
prevailed upon to leave his post till September, when he went to 
Mount Vernon for a few weeks. 

In the summer of 1796, the Washingtons entertained a number 
of guests at Mount Vernon, among them George Washington 
Lafayette, son of the Marquis. On the last birthday that 
the Washingtons spent in Philadelphia, Judge Iredell wrote : 
" The President's birthday was spent here with every mark of 
attachment, affection, and respect, rendered affecting beyond all 
expression by its being in some degree a parting scene. Mrs. 
Washington was moved even to tears, with the mingled emotions 
of gratitude for such strong proofs of public regard, and the new 
prospect of the uninterrupted enjoyment of domestic life. I 
never saw the President look better or in finer spirits, but his 
emotions were too powerful to be concealed. He could sometimes 
scarcely speak. Three rooms of his house were almost entirely 
filled from twelve to three, and such a crowd at the door that it 
was difficult to get in." The day before his retirement from public 
life, a large dinner was given by the President. The foreign 
ministers and their wives and many other distinguished guests 
were present, together with Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson. 
Bishop White says : " The President, having filled his glass, 
addressed the company, with a smile on his countenance, as nearly 
as can be recollected in the following terms : 'Ladies and gentle- 
men, this is the last time I shall drink your health as a public 
man. I do it with sincerity, and wishing you all possible happi- 
ness.' There was an end of all pleasantry. He who gives this 
relation accidently directed his eye to the lady of the British 
minister (Mrs. Liston), and tears were running down her cheeks." 

On the eighth, the General, now the ex-President, called on 
Mr. Adams, to leave his own and Mrs. Washington's respects 
for Mrs. Adams. The next day the General and Mrs. Washing- 



MARTHA WASHINGTON. 527 

ton, accompanied by Miss Custis and young Lafayette and his 
tutor, set out for Mount Vernon, to be received all along the way 
with acclamations. " I cannot tell you," wrote Mrs. Washington 
to Mrs. Knox, " how much I enjoy home after having been 
deprived of one so long, for our dwelling in New York and 
Philadelphia was not home, only a sojourning. The General and 
I feel like children just released from school, or from a hard task- 
master, and we believe that nothing can tempt us to leave the 
sacred roof-tree again." 

There are numerous accounts of the General taking cold, of the 
consequent attack of quinzy and death. His wife was tireless in 
her attention to him. Writes Mr. Lear : 

" While we were fixed in silent grief, Mrs. Washington (who 
was sitting at the foot of the bed), asked with a firm and collected 
voice, 'Is he gone?' I could not speak, but held up my hand 
as a signal that he was no more. ' 'Tis well/ said she in the same 
voice. ' All is now over, I shall soon follow him. I have no 
more trials to pass through.' ' She wrote to General Trumbull : 
" For myself, I have only to bow with humble submission to the 
will of God who giveth and who taketh away, looking forward 
with faith and hope to the moment when I shall again be united 
with the partner of my life." 

The two years remaining of the life of Martha Washington 
were passed at Mount Vernon, the scene of her chief joys. Here, 
surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she passed 
her quiet days, cheerful, though she knew sorrow and loneliness 
now that she was apart from him who had given her joy and 
companionship, and she " waited." In May, 1802, she died. 

The following notice of the event appeared in the Washington 
Federalist : 

" Died, at Mount Vernon, on Saturday evening, the 22d ultimo, 
Mrs. Martha Washington, widow of the late illustrious General 
George Washington. To those amiable and Christian virtues 



528 MARTHA WASHINGTON. 

which adorn the female character she added dignity of manners, 
superiority of understanding, a mind intelligent and elevated. 
The silence of respectful grief is our best eulogy." 

If the best part of a life needs no historian, the beauty of a 
woman's life is lived in those she loved, so of Martha Washington. 
Not great intellectually, in her were the virtues that make any 
woman superior in the estimation of the world — unselfishness, 
kindness, charity, and piety. An inspiring and sympathetic wife, 
a gentle mother, a true friend, worthy mate of the man foremost 
as his country's soldier, foremost as her patriot, our first President. 






1 4^4Ri 







EUGENIE 



EUGENIE 



In the month of January, 1853, a perplexing rumor startled 
the Parisians. The Emperor Louis" Napoleon had lately been 
at Compiegne, hunting the stag and paying court to a Spanish 
countess. At this period, the private life of their sovereign was 
such as to afford the inhabitants of the metropolis plentiful topics 
of scandal, and to exert a decidedly unfavorable effect upon the 
character of any woman to whom he showed attention. Little was 
known of the Spanish lady who was now the object of his suit ; 
she was said to be of mixed parentage, and it was asserted that 
her Scottish and Spanish descent were plainly indicated, the one 
by her blue eyes, the other by her olive skin. Her character 
was disparagingly spoken of, not that anything whatever to her 
discredit was known, but because she was the guest of an 
unmarried man, and one whose dissolute habits were matter 
of notoriety. The public regarded her, however, with little 
interest, supposing her merely a candidate for a dubious honor, 
and not for an instant supposing that his majesty was this time 
in earnest. 

Suddenly, the report was spread that Louis Napoleon was to 
marry the lady in question, whom, still according to report, he 
was unable to win upon other terms. The Parisians will long 



530 EUGENIE 

remember the explosion of discontent which was the immediate 
consequence of these tidings, which were soon after authenticated. 
In all classes of society, the opposition was profound and violent. 
The exasperation and disgust of the city were manifested in every 
possible form. The ministers handed in their resignations ; specu- 
lators took the alarm and sold their stocks at a ruinous loss j 
epigrammatists railed and scandal-mongers tattled. The dead 
walls in the faubourgs w( re found defaced in the morning by 
daubs and doggerel, done over night in chalk and charcoal ; the 
lithographers issued roundelays in halting verse, and for a time 
the poetasters flourished. It became the fashion for persons who 
had a reputation for facetiousness to preserve, to go about with 
a pin, with which they pretended to prick themselves, that they 
might wake up and find it a ridiculous dream. The emperor's 
advisers reasoned with him in vain ; his enemies rejoiced in con- 
templating the possible consequences of so serious a mistake. 
No woman ever received a welcome so chilling from a people 
whose sovereign she was to become ; and no woman ever issued 
so triumphantly from a distressing ordeal. We have spoken 
without concealment of the spirit and temper with which the 
Parisians were disposed, at the outset, to regard the young 
Spaniard, that we may have the satisfaction of chronicling, with 
equal impartiality, the amiable processes by which she con- 
quered their prejudices and won their cordial sympathy. 

On Saturday, the 2 2d of January, Louis Napoleon received 
the Council of State, the Senate and Legislative body, at the 
Tuileries, and formally announced to them his intended marriage. 
From his address delivered on this occasion, we extract the pas- 
sages referring especially to the lady of his choice : 

" Messieurs : 

"I yield to the wish so often expressed by the country, 
in announcing to you my marriage. 

11 The alliance which I contract is not in accordance with the 



EUGENIE. 531 

traditional requirements of our national policy, and therein lies 
its advantage. France, by her successive revolutions, has been 
often abruptly separated from the rest of Europe ; a wise govern- 
ment will seek to restore her to the pale of the ancient mon- 
archies. But this result will be more surely attained by a frank 
and straightforward policy, and by loyal conduct, than by regal 
alliances, which create a false security, and often substitute 
family interests for those of the nation. Moreover, the example 
of the past has implanted a superstition in the minds of the 
people. It cannot be forgotten that for seventy years foreign 
princesses have ascended the throne only to behold their race 
dispossessed by war or revolution. One woman alone seemed 
to bring happiness with her, and to live longer than the others 
in the memory of the people; and that woman, the kind and 
amiable wife of General Bonaparte, was not of royal blood. 
. . . . When, in the presence of Europe, a man is raised, 
by the force of a new principle, to a height equal to that of 
the oldest dynasty, it is not by seeking to give a character 
of antiquity to his escutcheon, and to introduce himself, at all 
costs, into a family, that he consolidates his position. It is 
rather by ever remembering his origin, by preserving his distinct 
character, and by frankly adopting before the world the title of 
parvenu — a glorious title, when obtained by the suffrages of a 
free people. Thus obliged to depart from precedents followed 
to the present day, my marriage became a private matter, and 
nothing remained but the choice of the person. 

" She who is the object of my preference is of distinguished 
birth. French in heart, by education, by the recollection of the 
blood shed by her father in the cause of the empire, she still 
possesses the advantage, as a Spaniard, of having no family in 
France upon whom it would be necessary to bestow honors and 
fortune. Her mental qualities will render her the ornament of 
the throne ; her courage will render her its support in the hour 
of danger. A Catholic, she will join me in my prayers for the 



532 EUGENIE. 

happiness of France. She will, in short, I trust, by her grace 
and goodness, seek to revive the virtues exhibited in the same 
position by the Empress Josephine. 

"'I come, then, gentlemen, to announce to France that I 
have chosen a woman whom I love and respect, in preference to 
one who would be comparatively unknown to me, and an alliance 
with whom would have presented advantages not unmingled with 
sacrifices. Without disdaining any one, I yield to my inclinations, 
after having taken counsel of my reason and my convictions. In 
placing domestic happiness and the qualities of the heart above 
dynastic prejudices and the calculations of ambition, I shall not, 
T am sure, be less strong by being more free. 

"I shall soon, at Notre Dame, present the empress to the 
people and the army. The confidence they have in me assures 
me of their sympathy ; and you, gentlemen, when you have 
learned to appreciate her whom I have chosen, will acknowledge 
that on this occasion also I have been inspired by Providence." 

This address, which — in the passages we have not quo- 
ted — was not without unfortunate allusions, produced a most 
favorable effect upon the public mind. It is true that the Paris- 
ians expressed the opinion, that if Louis Napoleon were so 
strongly prepossessed in favor of a marriage with a lady of 
merely patrician birth, he should not have suffered himself to 
be rejected by so many royal and grandducal houses. But as 
the several repulses which he had undergone were not known 
beyond Paris, the effect of the speech was eminently salutary 
upon the country at large. The step appeared bold and gener- 
ous to those who were ignorant that he had, in a measure, been 
goaded into it by a state of things which had obtained the name 
of a "matrimonial blockade." The French nation was, in fact, 
gratified that the emperor possessed the power to set his foot 
upon the shackles of routine, and that he was thus enabled to 
espouse a countess, from inclination, while the first Napoleon 



EUGENIE. 



533 



had felt himself compelled to divorce his wife, that he might 
marry an archduchess, from policy. 

Eugenie de Montijo, Countess de T6ba, was born in Granada, 
in the year 1827. The following brief table will give a more 
distinct view of her descent than could be furnished in any other 
form : 



ON THE FATHER'S SIDE. 



ON THE MOTHER'S SIDE. 



The First Count de Teba, 
created by Ferdinand, for va- 
liant conduct before Granada, 
in 1492. 



Mk. Kirkpatriok, of Con- 
heath, Scotland, married to 
Miss Wilson, of Gallaway. 



Palafox, his lineal descend- 
ant, Commander of Saragossa 
in 1808-9. 



William Klrkpatriok, their 
son, married, at Malaga, to Ma- 
ria, eldest daughter of the Ba- 
ron GrivegnSe. 



Count de Montijo Maria Manuela, 

and Teba, his son, marne ° their eldest daughter. 



Eugenie de Montijo, the eldest 
of two daughters. 



M'lle de Montijo was educated partly in Spain and partly i i 
France. She lost her father at the age of twelve years, after 
which event she was rarely separated from her mother. She en- 
tered society at an early age, and was for a long time the orna- 
ment of the ball rooms of Madrid and Paris — for she remained 
unmarried till her twenty-sixth year. The associations of her 
mother were with the best families of Madrid, although, being 
merely the daughter of a consul at Malaga, much opposition had 
been made to her marriage with the Count de T6ba. The latter. 



534 EUGENIE 

being a grandee of Spain, was obliged to obtain the consent of 
the king before he could wed the more humble object of his 
affections. But the Scottish heralds set to work with such dili- 
gence and produced so satisfactory a pedigree for Miss Kirk- 
patrick, that Ferdinand VII. exclaimed, after perusing it, " Let 
the good man marry the daughter of Fingal !" Fingal's grand- 
daughter was destined to become the Empress of the French. 

At all times it has been difficult to convey a correct idea 
of Eugenie's personality in words ; the difficulty of the task 
was, however, compensated for by the pleasure it afforded those 
who wrote of her in the present tense — a charming tense in 
which to write, when a woman's beauty is the theme. "Her 
majesty is slightly above the middle height; her shoulders are 
arge, but exquisitely moulded. Her head is small, her bust full, 
her neck long, but swanlike, and in its movements inimitably 
graceful. Her forehead is high and broad ; her eyes, which are 
by no means large, are greyish-blue, and set unusually close to- 
gether, the eyebrows being beautifully arched. Her mouth is 
small, her nose thin and slightly aquiline. Altogether, her face 
is small, but derives force from the upper part of the head, which is 
broad and intellectual, yet graceful. On the whole, these ele- 
ments scarcely seem to constitute personal beauty of a high 
order ; the secret of Eugenie's name and fame, as the most lovely 
occupant of a European throne, lies in that ethereal, spiritual en- 
dowment called expression. The prevailing characteristic of this 
expression is pensiveness, mingled with gentleness and extreme 
sensibility. She has made more friends by her grace than Louis 
Napoleon has made enemies by his artillery. The simplicity of 
her manners, coupled with her charms of face, become in time, 
by a process almost inscrutable, impressed on the mind to such a 
degree as to affect the imagination, and the beholder seems to 
discover traits beyond mere beauty — strength, firmness, and dig- 
nity of character — that strength, firmness, and dignity which be- 
long to womanly grace, greatness and goodness." 



EUGENIE 535 



The civil marriage of the emperor and Mile de Montijo took 
place on the night of Saturday, the 29th of January, at the Tuile- 
ries, the religious ceremony being solemnized the next day at 
Notre Dame. The population of Paris manifested the most in- 
tense curiosity and interest in the event, but were exceedingly 
sparing of their applause. The imperial carriage was received 
everywhere along the route with a hum of voices and sup- 
pressed exclamations, but with nothing which by any flight of 
imagination could be construed into enthusiasm. Her majesty 
was still an entire stranger to the people, and, thus unsupported 
by any personal popularity of her own, her position as the bride 
elect of Louis Napoleon gave her no especial claim to a cordial 
recognition. The city was still under the influence of the squibs 
and jibes which for ten days had been circulating from mouth to 
mouth. After the ceremony, the emperor led the empress to the 
balcony of the Tuileries, and, saluting the people, presented her 
to them as their future sovereign — as far as the Salic law would 
permit. The Americans who witnessed the scene will not soon 
forget it — for they felt it to be one of the most painful they had 
ever beheld. Hardly a man raised his voice or lifted his hat. 
The emperor was visibly moved, and the empress seemed to 
shrink back as if chilled to the heart ; she must have realized 
that to satisfy the curiosity of a multitude is a very different 
thing from awakening their sympathy. Still the impression 
^hich she had made, during this trying day, was eminently 
favorable, and the people went to their homes quite dis- 
posed to accord to the fair and amiable stranger that national 
and individual protection which she seemed by her manner to 
implore. 

Nearly all classes of society had some reason to thank the 
empress for her indirect influence upon their pleasures on this oc- 
casion. The lovers of spectacles were gratified by the procession, 
the illuminations, and the gratuitous performances at the thea- 
tres ; the army by a double ration of wine ; the schoolboys by a 
34 



530 EUGENIE. 

two days' vacation ; the victims of the emperor's displeasure by 
the announcement of four thousand pardons, or recalls from 
exile ; and the poor by her majesty's refusal of a diamond neck- 
lace, and her request that the sum voted for its purchase might 
be spent in works of benevolence. A certain woman of the 
lower orders must, upon learning this charitable act of the em- 
press, have regretted an unconsidered expression, which she had 
let fall a day or two before. She had read, upon an official bul- 
letin, that the Municipal Council were to invest six hundred 
thousand francs in jewelry, and unphilosophically coupling this 
enormous outlay with a circumstance which had severely af- 
fected her at the grocer's, she exclaimed, "Why, that's why oil 
has gone up three cents a pound !" This is but an instance 
among thousands of the disposition manifested, at the outset, to 
regard her majesty with distrust, if not with aversion. 

The happy pair spent the honeymoon at St. Cloud, occasion- 
ally appearing in an open carriage upon the Bois de Boulogne, 
followed by another carriage containing the four ladies of the 
palace. The promenaders treated them with respect, with cour- 
tesy even, but until her majesty began to assume an individual 
character, and to challenge the esteem of the nation for her many 
private virtues, we repeat that as the wife of Louis Napoleon, she 
was regarded with indifference, though without hostility. The 
epigrams at her expense continued, and for one month she was 
the theme of jests always telling but often indelicate, and gene- 
rally more remarkable for their ill-nature than their wit. The 
spectacle would have been a melancholy one, had her good name 
been in the slightest degree damaged by it. Such was not the 
case, however, and the Parisians were soon glad to forget that 
they had treated her with coldness and spoken of her with ob- 
loquy. 

The empress at once set about conciliating, by gracious and 
graceful acts, the good will of the nation. As the etiquette 
of the palace compelled her to live almost in isolation, and as she 



EUGENIE. 537 

was unable to inquire for herself into the necessities which it 
was her desire to relieve, her charities could only be bestowed 
through others. This circumstance gave to her benevolent acts 
a character which benevolence should never have — that of 
ostentation, and an appearance of being designed for effect 
The newspapers in the interest of the government seemed to vie 
with each other in the effort to render the generosity of the 
empress odious, with such nauseous pertinacity did they dwell 
upon the theme. That she eventually triumphed, even in spite 
of this unscrupulous and injurious service, is not one of her least 
claims to admiration. 

The empress made her first appearance, after her marriage, 
before the assembled fashion, nobility and wealth of Paris, on the 
night of the 7th of February, at a ball given by the Senate to 
their majesties, at the Luxembourg. This was an occasion of 
interest to the ladies, as the great question remained yet unde- 
cided whether her majesty's taste in dress was such as it be- 
hooved an empress to possess. The question was satisfactorily 
settled that night ; her majesty was deliciously habited in white 
satin, wearing a pearl necklace around her neck and violets in 
her hair. 

The Emperor, knowing how great an influence grace, elegance 
and beauty exercise upon the most ordinary people, especially when 
they are French, planned a journey with his handsome bride 
through the northern provinces, which were still somewhat dis- 
affected. He felt that the loyalty he had failed to gain would be 
won by the pretty and interesting woman with whom he had shared 
his power and his throne. So they set out in gilded state, visiting 
all the towns and villages of any importance, and were received 
everywhere with enthusiastic welcome, and all on account of 
Eugenie, whom the simple peasants appeared to consider as a radi- 
ant goddess descended from the skies. At every railway station 
and every hotel, crowds flocked to catch a glimpse of her ; and not 
a few of the rustics regarded her with a superstitious awe. The 



538 EUGENIE. 

northern provincialists all agreed they had never seen so beautiful 
a woman before ; and it is very probable they never had. The 
Emperor was delighted, of course, at her triumphs, and felt that 
his reign was secure while she could charm with her grace and 
fascinate with her smile. He returned to Paris more in love with 
her than ever, since he had discovered she was indeed necessary to 
the security of the Empire. So long as he had her at his side, he 
felt that even those who detested the course he had taken would be 
somewhat lenient when they thought of the lovely woman he had 
chosen for his wife. 

Some months after the birth of the Prince Imperial, March six- 
teenth, 1856 — an event which delighted the Emperor beyond measure, 
as it promised to fix and perpetuate the Napoleonic dynasty — the 
imperial father deemed it wise to make a journey through Brittany. 
Its inhabitants were less French in their feelings and sympathies 
than those of any other province ; and it was currently reported 
they still professed allegiance to Henry V. of England. To aid in 
nationalizing their character, he concluded to try the same experi- 
ment upon them that he had tried upon the people of the northern 
provinces. So with the dainty miracle-worker, Eugenie, he de- 
parted for the Bceotia of France. In the absence of railways, they 
traveled by post in royal state ; and as every effort had been previ- 
ously made to remove any cause of grievance or complaint on the 
part of the people, they met with a warm welcome. The Bretons, 
being generally ignorant, are naturally superstitious; and Eugenie 
had taken pains to inform herself of their special weaknesses and 
beliefs, and to conform to them as far as possible. 

One of the most famous shrines in Brittany is that of St. Anne 
d'Auray, where countless miracles were said to have been wrought. 
To this the Empress made a special visit, and appointed a time when 
she would go there to pray for the health and prosperity of her 
infant son. No such occasion was ever before seen in all the 
province. More than one hundred thousand persons were gathered 



EUGENIE. 539 

about the church on the eventful day, and her graceful Majesty, by 
her admirable deportment and condescending manners, found hei 
way to every one of their hearts. The feeling of each parent went 
out to her, as she knelt in fragrant poses and supplicated the pro- 
tection of Heaven for her child. In that moment the Empress and 
diplomat was lost in the woman and the mother. Genuine tears 
started to her eyes and ran down her cheeks. All who saw that 
fair face wet with woe, rude and uncultivated as they were, wept in 
sympathy ; and Eugenie quitted the shrine in the midst of benedic- 
tions on her head. 

She made a sentimental revolution in Brittany ; and to this day 
the peasants speak of the beautiful Empress with something of the 
reverence with which they name the Holy Virgin. She will not 
be forgotten in this generation, nor in the next. Her name and 
grace will be handed down from mother to daughter, and from sire 
to son, as something wonderful to behold. As the ages go by, she 
will be incorporated with their superstitions as some good angel 
dropped down from heaven. 

During the progress of the Crimean War, the Emperor and 
Empress made a visit to England, and were received with every 
mark of distinction from the royal family and the nobility. The 
people did not appear to care much for Napoleon ; but they were 
tumultuous in their approval of Eugenie. She and the Queen rode 
side by side in the royal carriage, and the contrast between the 
beauty and elegance of the one and the plainness and undistinction 
of the other was too palpable to be overlooked. With all her 
virtues, the English no doubt felt a little ashamed of their sove- 
reign, who, candor compels us to say, looked like a commonplace 
dowdy compared to the lovely and spirituelle Empress of the 
French. The same victories which she had obtained elsewhere 
followed Eugenie through England. She left an impression on the 
public mind which cannot soon be erased ; and it was said that 
if she appeared as simple Madame Bonaparte in Hyde Park to- 
day, she would receive ten times as many cheers as Victoria herself. 



540 EUGENIE. 

When the Emperor departed for the seat of war in Italy, May 
third, 1859, he appointed the Empress regent ; and the appointment 
was extremely popular. She made a great effort to gain the good- 
will of the people, and she succeeded. With her flue tact and 
instinct, she did what she knew would please, and so endeared her- 
self to them that they would not have heard a word against her 
under any circumstances. She visited the sick and wounded soldiers 
in the hospitals ; carried them delicacies, and nursed them herself, 
until not one of the poor fellows would have hesitated to risk his 
life in her service. A wounded soldier, to whom she had been 
particularly kind, but whose life was ebbing fast, raised himself 
with great difficulty, as she stood one day near his bed, kissed her 
shadow on the wall, fell back exhausted by the effort, and in a few 
minutes breathed his last. This worship of the common soldier 
touched her to the soul ; and she afterward said his was the finest 
and most delicate compliment she had ever received. 

Some time after the close of the Italian War, when the Empe- 
ror's policy was so inexplicable that he was accused of hostility to 
the Pope no less than to the Italians, he lost his patience under 
constant complaints, and almost determined to suppress the clergy 
in France. Eugenie, who had been growing more and more zealous 
in the cause of the Church, violently opposed her husband on this 
subject, and actually quarreled with him because she could not in- 
duce him to take her view. She even quitted Paris and the country 
without consulting him, and after traveling alone for two months 
returned to Paris, it is said, without his invitation. From this 
time, indeed, she seems to have undergone an extraordinary change ; 
and from this time she began to lose the favor of the people, whom 
she had so entirely won. She gave herself over to extravagance 
of every sort, and, having long been the acknowledged leader of 
fashion, she made her superb and expensive style of dressing obli- 
gatory upon all the ladies of the court and all women of society. 

At this juncture, M. Fould, Minister of State, deemed it neces- 



EUGENIE. 541 

sary to curtail the expenses of the government, which had become 
enormous. To carry out his purpose, he sought the aid of the 
Empress, urging her to adopt plainer and less costly modes for 
the benefit of the nation. She refused to do so, and, instead of les- 
sening, increased her expenditures in every possible way. Neither 
the Minister nor her husband could influence her. She ran riot in 
extravagance, and drew everybody after her. She so set the Min- 
ister at defiance, and hampered his plans, that he finally tendered 
his resignation in disgust. 

This triumph ought to have so gratified her self-love as to make 
her more prudent for the future. But it had no such effect. She 
still scattered money on all sides with lavish hand, and refused to 
listen to counsel or to submit to restraint. In spite of her splendid 
allowance, she was often financially embarrassed ; and, conceiving 
about this time that the Pope was sorely in need of funds, she 
determined to contribute liberally to his exchequer. She tried 
again and again to negotiate a loan on her own account ; but, failing, 
she resolved to convert into cash the diamonds that had been pre- 
sented to her by Marseilles, Lyons, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Paris, 
and other cities, on the occasion of her marriage. These were 
really a part of the crown jewels ; but they had no sacredness in 
her eyes, having once conceived that the Holy Father stood in need 
of money. She had some trouble in getting a purchaser for so 
many precious stones ; but through the energy of divers agents, the 
old Duke of Brunswick, a monomaniac on the subject of diamonds, 
was found willing and anxious to buy them. He paid handsomely 
for the gems ; and the sum was immediately remitted to Borne with- 
out the knowledge of any one but her confidants, among whom 
her husband did not then happen to be included. 

Another cause of estrangement between the imperial pair was 
this. A clever but entirely unscrupulous journalist, a mere adven- 
turer in fact, was in need of a position. He obtained an interview 
with the Empress, and pointed out to her the advantage of having 



542 EUGENIE. 

an organ of her own, which should be a zealous advocate of the 
Pope, the priests and the Church ; he himself, of course, to be the 
editor and director of the new enterprise. She caught at the idea 
at once, believing that great good could be done for religion by the 
publication of the journal. She applied to the Emperor for per- 
mission to establish the paper, but he peremptorily refused it. She 
was at a loss what to do, until the designing journalist suggested 
to her that her organ might be printed in Brussels without her 
husband's consent. She had not thought of this, and was on the 
point of setting up the journal in the Belgian capital. Napoleon, 
knowing that her doing so would reveal the fact of their domestic 
discord, told her she might issue her paper in Paris. To this cause 
La France owed its origin; and a journal more bigoted or more 
odious to every enlightened mind was never issued in the Empire. 

There is no doubt that for a number of months Eugenie worried 
and annoyed her husband excessively, and set his marital and im- 
perial authority at defiance. The wound was deep, and rankled ; 
but he concealed it carefully ; for he was calmer, wiser, and more 
generous than she. It was a strange phase of her development; 
and it has always been supposed in Paris that nothing but the in- 
fluence exercised upon her by the priests and Jesuits can explain 
her extraordinary conduct. It is stated that for a long while Napo- 
leon and Eugenie preserved in private a condition of armed neu- 
trality, never visiting each other's apartments, and exchanging 
words only when necessary. On public occasions they appeared 
together as usual, no one suspecting their disharmony extending to 
spiritual divorce; for the Emperor of the French was too sensitive 
and too proud to have them know that the woman he had lifted to 
his throne and his heart had forgotten both her loyalty and her 
love. 

How long this estrangement continued is not likely to be known. 
But it ended as discords between men and women usually end — with 
repentance on one side and forgiveness on the other ; with promises 



EUGENIE. 64 3 

and petitions ; with caresses and tears ; with tenderness and affec- 
tion renewed. It may be that the danger they shared in common 
— for they always lived upon a mine — had much to do with their 
reconciliation. And it is hard for two persons, who have ever loved 
each other, to lie down at night with mutual bitterness in their 
hearts, when the coming day may part them forever. 

Women almost always carry their point with men ; and Eugenie 
so won over Napoleon to her religious zeal, that, contrary to his 
better judgment, and greatly to his personal and political disad- 
vantage, he kept the French troops in Rome, and supported the 
Papal throne with French bayonets. Unquestionably he loved her ; 
and it is not strange that she, with all her tact and talent, her grace 
and capacity for tenderness, drew him gently but surely to do what 
prudence and reason would have left undone. 

Eugenie never ceased to be a zealot. On the contrary, she seemed 
to have grown more and more a blind worshiper of the Church 
as the years went on. Perhaps she passed through at least two of 
the three phases represented as belonging to the life of every French- 
woman. First, she is coquettish ; then literary ; and, finally, ex- 
tremely pious. Eugenie, being of Spanish birth, could not well be 
afflicted with a mania for letters ; but her periods of flirtation and 
religion have been very clearly defined. Spanish women, espe- 
cially when young and handsome, have never been remarkable for 
demureness of manner or prudery of conduct. The subject of this 
sketch, having her origin in Andalusia, must have inherited some 
of the softness and warmth of its climate ; and it is not singular, 
therefore, that she had had romantic and sentimental experiences 
before she encountered the arbiter of her destiny. She was pretty 
and attractive from her early childhood, as all who knew her long 
ago are unanimous in testifying. 

Among the many interesting reminiscences of her who was 
Eugenie Montijo, and afterward Empress of the French, those of 



544 EUGENIE. 

Washington Irving are not the least interesting. In 1853, he wrote 
to a feminine friend : 

" I know the grandfather of the Empress, old Mr. Kirkpatrick, 
who had heen American Consul at Malaga. I passed an evening 
at his house in 1827. A week or two afterward, I was at the house 
of his son-in-law, the Count Teba, a gallant and intelligent gentle- 
man of Granada, much cut up in the wars, having lost an eye, and 
been maimed in a leg or hand. His wife, the daughter of Mr. 
Kirkpatrick, was absent, but he had a family of little girls about 
him. Several years afterward, when I had recently taken up my 
abode at Madrid, I was invited to a grand ball at the house of the 
Countess of Montijo, one of the leaders of the ton. On making 
my bow to her, I was surprised at being received by her with the 
warmth and eagerness of an old friend. She claimed me as a 
friend of her late husband, the Count Teba, subsequently Marquis 
Montijo, and said he had often spoken of me with the greatest 
regard. She subsequently introduced me to the little girls I had 
known in an early day, who had become fashionable belles of 
Madrid. One of these now sits on the throne of France." 

A short time afterward Irving wrote thus to a niece, then residing 
at Paris : 

"You give an account of the marriage procession of Louis 
Napoleon and his bride to the church Notre Dame, and one of your 
letters speaks of your having been presented to the Empress. Louis 
Napoleon and Eugenie Montijo, Emperor and Empress of France, 
one of whom I have had a guest at my cottage on the Hudson, and 
the other whom, when a child, I have had on my knee at Granada- 
It seems to cap the climax of the strange dramas of which Paris 
has been the theatre during my lifetime. 

" The last I saw of Eugenie Montijo she was one of the reigning 
belles of Madrid ; she and her giddy circle had swept my charming 

young friend, the beautiful, accomplished Signorita , into their 

career of fashionable dissipation. Now Eugenie is on the throne, 



EUGENIE. 545 

while is a voluntary recluse in a convent of one of the most 

rigorous orders. Poor ! Perhaps, however, her fate may 

ultimately be the happier of the two. With her the storm is over, 
and she is at rest; but the other is launched upon a dangerous sea, 
infamous for its tremendous shipwrecks. Am I to live to see the 
catastrophe of her career, or the end of this suddenly conjured up 
Empire, which seems to be of such stuff as dreams are made of? 

" My personal acquaintance with the individuals who figure in 
this historical romance gives me uncommon interest in it ; but I 
consider it stamped with danger and instability, and as liable to 
extravagant vicissitudes as one of Dumas's novels. You do well 
to witness the grand features of this passing pageant. You are 
probably reading one of the most peculiar and eventful pages of 
history, and may live to look back upon it as a romantic tale." 

Both in Madrid and Paris, Eugenie led a life so very gay and 
fashionable that in London or New York it would be called fast. 
Still, she was discreet in her pleasures, and mistress of herself. She 
loved excitement and dissipation, for they were natural to her blood ; 
but she had wisdom enough to pause on this side of danger, and 
never walked very long on the brink of precipices where to fall 
was to be hopelessly lost. With the susceptibility that belonged to 
her native South, she must have given away her heart a number of 
times, though she always took it back again ; and when Napoleon 
asked for it, it is fair to presume it was as good as new. The 
gossips of the period declare she had been engaged a score of times, 
but sagaciously refrained from going to the altar until an Emperor 
could conduct her thither. 

It was stated at one time, in a Southern paper, that in 1851, when 
Eugenie Marie de Montijo was attracting attention in Paris by the 
loveliness of her person and her reputation as a fascinating Countess, 
she narrowly escaped becoming the wife of an American. The 
Spanish belle appeared as ingenuous and artless as any woman of 
society can, and revealed no desire to give her hand without her 



546 EUGENIE. 

heart. Her mother, represented as a managing mamma, was fai 
more ambitions than her daughter, and bent upon securing for her 
some great alliance, particularly as Eugenie's sister had been mar- 
ried only a short time before to the Duke of Alba and Berwick, a 
lineal descendant of James II. 

A handsome young Virginian, son of William C Rives, the 
American Minister, having been thrown into the society of the 
Countess, fell desperately in love with her, and she returned his 
passion. In spite of Donna Maria's lofty connubial schemes, the 
youthful couple were engaged, and would certainly have been 
married but for the interference of Mrs. Rives, who broke off the 
match. The charming Montijo impressed the Virginian matron as 
too rapid in her orbits, and therefore cheated the county of Albe- 
marle and its plantations of a beautiful matron, whose fame would 
never have reached the banks of the Potomac. 

To return to the Empress : she never had so many admirers as 
during the Exposition in 1867, when all the world went to Paris, 
and bore testimony to the indefinable charm of her presence and 
manner, though her freshness and beauty were even then somewhat 
on the wane. Among all the lovely women assembled there from 
every nation, none outshone — none eclipsed her. The Czar of 
Russia, the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, the Sultan 
of Turkey, and the princes and nobles of all Europe rendered 
homage to her charms. No court of the old world could boast of 
her counterpart, and as a sentimental sorceress her spell could not 
be broken. Napoleon was never prouder of her than during that 
gala time, which seemed to predict the dawn of wide-spread and 
lasting peace. How false are appearances ! He then rode to the 
Champs de Mars and in the Bois with King William and Bismarck, 
while the Crown Prince of Prussia, in another carriage, was hon- 
ored and delighted with the companionship and conversation of the 
Empress. Things are sadly changed now. Eugenie, in retire- 
ment, mourns husband and son ; and France is a Republic. 



EUGENIE. 547 

Still another of Eugenie's peaceful victories was when, in 
November, 1869, she visited Egypt, to assist in the celebration of 
the opening of the Suez Canal. The Emperor had intended to 
accompany her ; but as the elections were held about the same time, 
he did not deem it prudent to absent himself from Paris. So she 
went with her suite in purple state, leaving Marseilles in the steam 
yacht Aigle in the most propitious weather. On the sixteenth of 
November she was visited at Port Said by the Prince and Princess 
of Holland, the Prince Eoyal of Prussia, the Viceroy of Egypt, 
the Emperor of Austria, Prince Metternich, and many foreign dig- 
nitaries and envoys. The Empress landed ; assisted at a Te Deum; 
attended a Mosque, and remained through the Mussulmanic service. 
The town, the banks of the canal, and the vessels were illuminated, 
and festivities were kept up until a very late hour. Pere Bauer, 
the almoner of Eugenie, " opened " the canal with a solemn blessing, 
and invoked the favor of Heaven upon her for her sympathy with 
and interest in the great Avork. The same evening, the seventeenth, 
a grand ball was given at Ismailia, and the following day was 
marked by a great gathering of the native tribes, with various 
games and amusements; by music, bonfires, illuminations, and salvos 
of artillery ; concluding with a superb banquet given by M. de 
Lesseps to the Chambers of Commerce and the Press. At Alex- 
andria and Cairo Eugenie was greeted with loud acclamations and 
demonstrations of delight. She lent a certain glory to the occasion 
which without her it would have never had ; and she returned from 
Egypt almost smothered with the laurels she had gained from all 
sorts of people. 

When Louis Napoleon had concluded, after the declaration of 
war against Prussia, to take command of the forces in the field, it 
is said that Eugenie felt a presentiment of evil which she could not 
shake off. She thought when the Emperor quitted Paris he would 
never return, and she often declared that some great crisis was im- 
pending in their fate. Sad, indeed, were their scenes of parting 



548 EUGENIE. 

before their parting came ; and the Empress so clung to her husband 
and her child that the former was almost unmanned by the in- 
tensity of her emotion. She was weak and heroic by turns ; but 
all the while the cloud from which she expected the lightning's 
leap, lowered dark and threatening above her head. She was again 
appointed regent; and the Emperor, brave enough to trust himself 
to a final interview, rode quietly to the station with Eugenie and 
the Prince Imperial. At the station, the tears, the sobs, the caresses 
and the clingings were renewed ; and it was with difficulty tha«t 
Napoleon and the Prince induced the frantic lady to compost 
herself sufficiently to enable them to make their adieux with be- 
coming dignity. She still clasped her husband and her son in her 
arms, as if her soul had grown to them, up to the very moment of 
the starting of the train. The Emperor then motioned to the ladies 
of the court who were in attendance. They came forward and 
gently disengaged her convulsive embrace, and led her away. The 
train moved off, and her heart followed those nearest and dearest to 
her of all the world. She threw kisses to them, while her deli- 
cately-gloved hands were wet with the rain of her grief. The boy's 
lip quivered, and even the father's stolid face revealed a pang, as 
the last glance of the weeping Empress fell upon them, dashing off 
to the northern frontier, and to the bloody struggle which was to 
bring to France the deepest humiliation she had ever known. 

During the few weeks of the Empress's regency, she conducted 
herself with calmness and dignity, credit and ability, and seemed 
to regain much of the influence she had exercised before the Italian 
campaign. She had need of strength and sagacity, and the occa- 
sion yielded them. Many of the red republicans, who detested 
Napoleon, appeared well disposed toward her, and Paris would 
have chanted her praises, as it had done before, if victory had but 
perched on the imperial eagles. But when the news of disaster 
after disaster came — and they were disasters to her in a double 
sense — the denizens of St. Antoine would have insulted her pub- 



EUGENIE. 549 

licly, had she not been, in the midst of misfortune, still an elegant 
and high-bred woman. All adversity culminated when the tidings 
of S6dan reached her ears ; for then she felt the cause was lost, and 
that the Napoleonic dynasty, which she had always striven to insure, 
was at an end forever. 

On the night she heard the dreadful news, she never closed her 
eyes. She took no counsel, for no one came to her; and through 
the long and dreary hours she sat almost alone, her busy fancy tor- 
turing her with ghastly visions of the future. Out of the windows 
of the Tuileries she looked at the first flush of dawn upon the 
Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elys£es, the finest square and 
avenue in the world, and felt she was looking at them for the last 
time. 

With the morning the face of the capital was changed. It was 
Sunday — usually the gayest day of the week. The sunshine fell 
softly upon the great city, whose mutterings of wrath and discon- 
tent could already be detected. Long before noon the splendid 
square was filled with angry and desperate men, who cast fierce 
glances at the palace, and sang with sullen wildness the quivering 
verses of the Marseillaise. 

To the practiced eye of a Parisian there was no mistaking what 
the signs of the time portended. France was in the dust, hurled 
there by an enemy she had been taught for generations to despise. 
France needed a victim, and none so fitting or acceptable as he who 
for years had been at once the glory and the shame of the nation 
— the beautifier of Paris and the despot of the Empire. 

Eugenie waited and watched with increasing anxiety and an 
undefined dread of the unknown. Again and again she summoned 
her attendants and the ladies of the court ; but they answered not ; 
and then she knew she was an Empress no longer ; that the revo- 
lution had taken place over night, and that of all women in Paris, 
she was least safe and most ill-starred. She went from apartment 
to apartment in the Tuileries ; stepped into the corridors ; looked 



550 EUGENIE. 

into the ante-chambers. No one was there. The Tuileries, like 
herself, was deserted. Almost the entire retinue of the regent had 
taken alarm at the wild, fierce aspect of the exasperated city, and 
hurried away, carrying what few valuables they could conveniently 
lay hands upon. But not every one was faithless; and the rare 
exceptions, to the credit of the sex be it said, were women. They 
were three — Madame Le Breton, wife of the General, and two 
other ladies, names unknown. While these four unfortunates were 
debating the best course to take, a tried friend of the Emperor 
entered the apartment unannounced, and informed the ladies there 
was no time to lose ; the Empire was dead, and it was no longer safe 
for the Empress to remain in the city. He proffered his aid, even 
unto death ; and after many frights and narrow escapes from dis- 
covery, they made their way through the gallery to the Louvre, and 
descending a private staircase, their protector ordered two cabriolets. 
While one was driven to the Faubourg St. Germain, the Empress 
went in the other to the residence of her friend, in the Boulevard 
Malesherbes. 

They had scarcely driven off when the mob burst into the 
palace, and were with difficulty prevented from destroying it. In 
the evening Eugenie was conducted to the Northwestern station, 
and early the following day reached a quiet bathing-place on the 
coast. Her friend and protector there met an Englishman with 
whom he had served in the Crimea, and whose yacht happened to 
be in port, destined for the British coast. It required very little 
time to make all necessary arrangements for the transportation of 
<the Empress, and in a few hours she had reached Hyde, on the Isle 
of Wight. From there, still unknown, she crossed by steamer to 
Portsmouth, and took the train for Hastings. The Prince Imperial, 
or he who was such, met his mother in that old historic town. They 
were both pale and worn ; and the landlord of the hotel, who was 
present when they rushed into each other's arms, heard her say in 
broken sobs, "Poor Louis, now I have only you;" and mother anc' 



EUGENIE. 551 

son wept and clung to each other as if they could never be parted 
again. 

The lives of few women in this century have been more diver- 
sified or romantic than Eugenie's. Her destiny has indeed been a 
strange one. From a spoiled child and fashionable belli in Spain, she 
became the cynosure of discriminating eyes in the capital of France. 
From the pretty little Eugenie Montijo, whom everybody petted 
in Madrid, she found her way to the throne of the Empire, and 
made herself a reputation which will long outlive her. She has 
shown what a pretty and elegant woman can accomplish without 
any special power or gift beyond tact and appreciation. 

She was the creator of modes and the acknowledged leader of 
fashion for ten years. She was the very high-priestess of dress, 
and no one was bold enough to question her taste or depart from 
her decrees. There was no limit to her extravagance, and love of 
display was an inborn passion. Her toilettes were marvels of art, 
and her wardrobe, if preserved, would, a hundred years hence, be 
a museum of mantua. Like Elizabeth of England, she is said 
never to have worn the same gown twice, and often to have been 
the possessor of more than a thousand new and costly robes. She 
showed, more clearly than any other of her sex, how easy it is for a 
woman to exhaust the most princely revenues in the adornment of 
her person. She indeed made dressing a fine art. She was the 
Cleopatra of milliners and the Aspasia of modistes ; the Semiramis 
of taste and the Zenobia of effect. Eugenie, though accomplished, 
was neither brilliant nor profound. Beside French and Spanish, 
she spoke Italian and English fluently and elegantly, and had 
many accomplishments that set off her fine air and manner to the 
best advantage. Above all, she understood the art of pleasing, and 
by it she made friends and admirers from the Tweed to the Nile. 

Few persons she wished to win were able to resist the charm 

of her presence and the magnetism of her nature. She conquered 

the most fastidious critics of Paris and the wildest of the wild Arabs 
35 



552 EUGENIE. 

of the desert. With her walked success, and the bird of fasci- 
nation perched upon her finger whenever she willed to have 
it so. 

In later years she lost much of her freshness and purity of 
outline ; but her carriage and manner, her grace and suavity, have 
underwent no change. We shall always think of her as we have 
seen her driving in the Champs Ely sees or in the Bois, in a capti- 
vating pose that seemed the poetry of nature, and with the air of 
gracious breeding which at once draws and demands. By a strict 
standard, she was never beautiful ; and yet her triumphs have been 
beyond those which mere beauty gains. She will live in story and 
tradition through future generations, and romances for a hundred 
years will make it seem a rare privilege to have breathed the air 
that brought the rose to the lily of her cheek. 

As there was something dazzling in her elevation from Countess 
to Empress, there is something sad in her downfall. Only a few 
weeks, and from the head of the great nation, the regent and embo- 
diment of the imperial power, she became a fugitive from the scene 
of her daily triumphs, with none of her countless worshipers to do 
her reverence. Her decline was more sudden than her rise. While 
the world gazed at the blazing star, and said, " See how brilliant ! " 
it fell from the midst of the heavens into the depths of the night. 

Defects, many and grave, the ex-Empress had — the gravest 
that of over-religious zeal, bordering on superstition. By and 
through that she lost her hold upon the French people; but it 
mattered little in the crisis of her fate ; for Paris would have cast 
her out after S£dan had she been in all respects the goddess of their 
ideal. The trite aphorism, " Nothing succeeds like success," is 
French in spirit as in its original wording. Eugenie's husband, 
for whom France had just given an overwhelming majority, was 
unfortunate, and it could find no language strong enough for his 
denunciation. He was neither better nor worse for defeat ; but 
Paris made him answer for the superior strength of the Prussian 



EUGENIE. 553 

armies, an 7 ! built up a republic out of its shivered hopes and 
bleeding wounds. Eugenie's future cannot be stranger than 
her past ; for her experience has exhausted romance, and she 
has both honor and sympathy in her adversity. Indeed, she 
has more of each now than she had at the height of power. She 
has shown strength and courage in time of trial, and with all 
her weaknesses and caprices, has been a very womanly woman, 
making it easy for us to understand the parable of Eve and 
Eden. No generous nature could help but pity her in her 
downfall; remembering her at her best while the cloud was 
on her, and forgetting what she would wish to have forgotten. 

Eugenie's life at Chiselhurst, near London, was a calm, in- 
deed, we believe, a happy one, until death claimed her husband 
— the ex-Emperor — whose loss she felt most keenly. All her 
hopes as a mother and sovereign then centred in her son and 
only child, Prince Louis, who had developed into a gallant and 
accomplished young fellow, whom all that knew him loved ; and 
who was looked up to as the head of the Napoleonic party in 
France. The world wondered when he, in pursuit of a Utopian 
idea that he could be of service to England, for whose hospi- 
tality he felt grateful, left his luxurious home to enter the Brit- 
ish army in South Africa. But when, on an early June day 
in 1879, the telegraph flashed the news around the globe that 
the brave young heart had ceased to beat — that the young 
Napoleon lay stark and dead beneath an African sun, his body 
pierced with many cruel wounds from the remorseless spears of 
the savage Zulus — a thrill of heartfelt sorrow went through 
millions of breasts ; of pity for the young life thrown away, but 
a twofold sympathy for Eugenie, once the great Empress of 
France, now only remembered by the world as the poor, 
crushed, grief-stricken mother, bowed to the very earth by 
the weight of her crushed hopes, and, like Rachel, refusing to 
be comforted. 



554 EUGENIE. 

A letter, dated October, 1879, tells the following piteous story 
of Eugenie's grief: "The poor Empress, in her melancholy se- 
clusion of Camden House, has the sympathy of everybody, in- 
cluding the ladies who are her old enemies, and who would not 
admit once that she was a good wife and mother. She received 
the Queen of England, the other day, in the famous blue bou- 
doir, where she has collected all the souvenirs which must here- 
after have only a tragical interest for her. There, under a 
glass case, she keeps the casts of the right hand of the Emperor 
and the young Prince, and these two hands are represented as 
holding the telegraph despatch announcing the adoption of the 
law ordering the reconstruction of the column in the Place 
Vendome. There, also, on a dainty shelf, is a little white satin 
rosette that the Prince Imperial wore on the day of his first 
communion. By a singular stroke of luck, this tiny piece of 
ribbon was found intact in the midst of the ruins of the Tuil- 
eries, preserved in some miraculous manner from even a single 
stain. And there, too, on a pedestal, and carefully shielded 
from harm, is a marble bust of the Prince, which was likewise 
uninjured by the fire. The grief of the ex-Empress is over- 
whelming, and she wanders from room to room, weeping the 
whole day long." 

On the 26th of March, 1880, Eugenie sailed from South- 
ampton, England, for South Africa, to visit the spot where her 
son was slain by the Zulus. A small suite accompanied her on 
this sad pilgrimage into the African wilderness, while the sym- 
pathies of all Christendom went with the broken-hearted mother. 
What a contrast to the bright years of her early wifehood, when, 
as mistress of France, and of the world of fashion and beauty, she 
ruled supreme from the seeming acme of earthly greatness ! 

In later years, Eugenie devoted herself to the Bonapartists' cause. 
This somewhat estranged Queen Victoria, and Eugenie was not a 
guest at the Diamond Jubilee of her former friend. 




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FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 



In 1820, in Florence, Italy, was born the subject of this sketch. 
She is the daughter of William Shore Nightingale, a wealthy- 
gentleman with a fine estate at Lea Hurst, in Derbyshire, Eng- 
land. In her youth she was carefully instructed by her father 
in the classics and higher mathematics. Through extensive 
travel she became proficient in French, German and Italian. 
From her early life she evinced a great tenderness for dumb 
animals. 

Rich, well-favored and finely educated, she would have been 
an ornament to society. But her mind did not turn that way, 
instead, when quite a young girl, she began visiting the sick near 
Lea Hurst and her father's other estate, Embly Park, Hampshire. 
Occasionally all her family passed a season in London, but 
instead of attending fashionable functions the girl visited hospitals 
and benevolent institutions. When traveling with her people in 
Egypt she nursed several sick Arabs, and they recovered under 
her care. She felt called toward the sick, and finally she deter- 
mined to spend some time at Kaiserworth, near Dusseldorf, at the 
great Lutheran Hospital there, and perfect herself in a work she 
had come to regard as her mission. On her return to Lea Hurst she 

(555) 



556 FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 

was restless, feeling idle when there was so much work to be done in 
the world. 

In London there was a hospital for poor governesses, and it was 
on the verge of failure through lack of money support. Florence 
Nightingale became interested in the matter, and leaving her home 
she connected herself with the institution, saved it by her fortune 
and worked in it for several years. Her own health failed for a 
time and she was ordered rest, but she remained at her post till 
she saw the hospital established on a sure foundation and in the 
way of prosperity. 

By this time the Crimean War had begun, and England 
was sending great shiploads of men to the Black Sea. Little 
thought seems to have been taken in the enthusiasm of engaging 
in the war with Russia to provide the men with proper food or 
clothing in the unused-to climate of Russia. In the desolate 
country of the Czar, amid the colds of unheard-of bitter winters, 
the men were soon suffering terribly. After the first winter 
cholera broke out and camp after camp was decimated in its 
strength by the death of men. 

Matters went from bad to worse. The correspondent of the 
Times wrote to England: "It is now pouring rain, the sky is 
black as ink, the wind is howling over the staggering tents, the 
trenches are turned into dykes. In the tents the water is some- 
times a foot deep; our men have not either warm or waterproof 
clothing, they are out for twelve hours at a time in the trenches, 
they are plunged into the miseries of a winter campaign, and not 
a soul seems to care for their comfort or even their lives . . . 
The commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting; there is not 
the least attention paid to decency or cleanliness; the stench is 
appalling; the fetid air can barely struggle out to taint the atmos- 
phere, save through the chinks in the walls and roofs; and, for 
all I can observe, these men die without the least effort being 
made to save them. I hear they lie just as they were gently let 



FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 557 

down on the ground by the poor fellows, their comrades, who 
brought them on their backs from the camp with the greatest 
tenderness, but who are not allowed to remain with them. The 
sick appear to be tended by the sick, and the dying by the dying." 

The winter of 1854 was terrible in its rigor. About the camps 
the snow was sometimes three feet in depth, and many of the men 
were frozen to death even in the shelter of their tents. Out of 
over forty thousand, over eighteen thousand reported at the 
hospitals. At last England was roused, and money came pouring 
into the office of the Times, whose correspondent, William Howard 
Russell, had ventilated the state of affairs. A special commis- 
sioner was appointed who was sent to the Crimea with necessary 
food and shirts and flannels. 

But that was not all that was needed. Nurses were the most 
in demand — women nurses. The Secretary of War, the Right 
Honorable Sydney Herbert, suggested Miss Nightingale, whose 
work in the hospital for poor governesses had become known and 
was not forgotten. But she was frail in health, and it was scarcely 
possible she should go so many thousand miles from home to live 
in places where there were only men. However, Mr. Herbert 
wrote her : " There is as far as I know only one person in England 
capable of organizing and directing such a plan, and I have been 
several times on the point of asking you if you would be disposed 
to make the attempt. That it will be difficult to form a corps of 
nurses no one knows better than yourself. .... I have 
this simple question to put to you : ' Could you go out yourself 
and take charge of everything?' It is of course understood that 
you will have absolute authority over all the nurses, unlimited 
power to draw on the government for all you judge necessary to 
the success of your mission ; and I think I may assure you the 
co-operation of the medical staff. Your personal qualities, your 
knowledge, and your authority in administrative affairs all fit you 
for this position." 



558 FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 

By a most remarkable coincidence, the very day on which this 
letter was written, Miss Nightingale herself wrote to Mr. Herbert, 
stirred to the very soul as she was by the reported suffering of 
the troops. 

In a few days all over the world was spreading this letter from 
the war office : 

" Miss Nightingale, accompanied by thirty-four nurses, will 
leave this evening for the seat of war." 

The whole nation thought of this frail woman going out to 
untold miseries and privation. Mrs. Jameson wrote : "It is an 
undertaking wholly new to our English customs, much at 
variance with the usual education given to women in this country. 
If it succeeds, it will be the true, the lasting glory of Florence 
Nightingale and her band of devoted assistants, that they have 
broken down a Chinese wall of prejudices — religious, social, profes- 
sional — and have established a precedent which will indeed 
multiply the good to all time." 

It was the little touch that makes the whole world kin; in 
France the hotel-keepers would take no pay for the accommodation 
of the nurses; the poor fisherwomen of Boulogne carried their 
luggage to the railway station. The little band reached Scutari, 
November 5th, the day of the battle of Inker man. They found 
the hospitals mere pest-houses, the Barrack Hospital lent to the 
British by the Turkish government overcrowded in the extreme. 
Double rows of mattresses filled the corridors, and so close together 
that one could scarcely walk between the rows. A nurse writes: 
" The whole of yesterday was spent in sewing the men's mattresses 
and then washing them, and in assisting the surgeons when we 
could in dressing the men's ghastly wounds after their five days' 
confinement on board ship, during which space their wounds had 
not been dressed. Hundreds of men with fever, dysentery, and 
cholera filled the wards in succession from the overcrowded 
transports." 



FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 559 

Florence Nightingale herself went quietly among the men, 
always with a word of sympathy for their sufferings, calmly and 
unobtrusively doing with deft hands the offices that soothed them. 
The soldiers often wept as the woman-hand smoothed their pillows 
and a woman's eyes smiled cheeringly into theirs. 

Her path was a most difficult one, for her coming was not 
welcomed by many of the military and medical men. Women 
were not so prominent in affairs in those days as now, and she 
was looked upon as in the way, and as usurping the privileges of 
men. But with discretion and tact she overcame the dislike for 
her, while her ability soon received recognition. 

She established an invalid's kitchen where an appetizing diet 
could be prepared. She overlooked the cooking of the food of 
eight hundred men laid low by wounds and sickness. She 
established a laundry where the filthy clothing of the men was 
washed. 

She seemed to be everywhere at once. There was never a 
severe case that escaped her attention or notice, and sometimes 
she was at the side of a soldier who had been sent in but an hour 
before, and of whose arrival, in all the hurry and turmoil, one 
would have supposed she could hardly have known. 

She aided in establishing a library and getting up evening 
lectures for the men. She wrote letters for the sick, and helped 
them in every way that she could. She reduced the death-rate 
of the hospitals from sixty per cent, to a little over one per 
cent., laboring on for a year and a half, till the close of the war. 
She was a ministering angel, and as her slight form glided along 
the corridors the poor pained faces brightened at sight of her. 
When the medical attendants had retired for the night, her little 
lamp was often seen as she went from cot to cot in those dreary 
rounds seeing if all were right. 

"With the heart of a true woman and the manner of a lady, 
accomplished and refined beyond most of her sex," said the Times, 



560 FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 

"she combines a surprising calmness of judgment and rjrompti- 
tude and decision of character. The popular instinct was not 
mistaken, which, when she set out from England on her mission 
of mercy, hailed her as a heroine ; I trust she may not earn her 
title to a higher, though sadder appellation, that of martyr. 
No one who has observed her fragile figure and delicate health 
can avoid misgivings lest these should fail." 

One of the soldiers is said to have written home: "She would 
speak to one and another of us, and nod and smile to many more, 
but she could not do it to all of us, you know, for we lay there 
by hundreds. But we could kiss her shadow where it fell, and 
lay our heads on our pillows again content," Another said that 
before she came there were cursing and swearing, but all that 
stopped when she was among them and without a word of rebuke 
from her lips. She was called the "Angel of the Crimea." 

Once she was prostrated by fever, but quickly recovered and 
was at her post again. The fatigue that she underwent w r as 
marvelous, going without sleep and food only too often when 
there w T as much to do, and only a few hands to do it. 

Physicians were not above consulting her, and generals regarded 
her as another commander — the commander back to life. 

The thousands that were saved through her directing efforts can 
scarcely be estimated, for by her advice a new system of hospital 
hygiene was gradually adopted, so that the place of healing was 
no longer a house of horrors, but a nest of cool chambers, where 
cleanliness and air did what darkness and dirt had failed to do 
before. It may be safe to say that, but for Florence Nightingale, 
the various societies that do so much for the alleviating of the 
wounded in battle would not so soon have come into existence, 
though they were bound to come in time as intelligence and 
thought began to play as great a part in illness and injury as 
does the pharmacopoeia and the lancet. 

Finally the war came to an end, and London prepared to give 



FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 561 

Miss Nightingale a royal welcome. There was nothing but praise 
for her now, and those who had looked askance at her under- 
takings awoke to the realization that she had done far more than 
she had started out to do. So there were to be wildly praising 
times for her when she came back home. But Miss Nightingale 
got wind of this, and instead of coming to England by the way 
expected, she quietly took passage on a French steamer and 
reached Lea Hurst, August loth, unknown to anyone. The 
wish to honor with the blare of trumpets a woman who had done 
a humane act was not to her liking. But modest as she was, tired 
as she was, some public demonstration must be made in her favor. 
Had she dared to speak it would have been done in a form that 
was dear to her heart, and which came about without any expressed 
wish on her part. 

Queen Victoria sent for her to visit her at Balmoral. The 
royal command could not be denied. Miss Nightingale accord- 
ingly went, and was welcomed warmly by her sovereign and the 
brilliant court around her. Her majesty presented her with a 
valuable jewel, a red cross on a white field, closely approaching 
an Order of Knighthood, which could not, of course, be bestowed 
upon her. On a band encircling this cross were the words, 
" Blessed are the merciful." The letters V. R., surmounted by a 
crown of diamonds, are upon the centre of the cross. Green 
enamel branches of palm form the framework of the shield, 
while around their stem is a ribbon of blue enamel, with the 
single word " Crimea " blazoned on it. On the back is an in- 
scription written by the Queen. 

The Sultan sent her a magnificent bracelet. But dearer than 
all to her heart of hearts, appreciate as she did the affectionate 
and grateful thought prompting the personal honors accorded her, 
was the grant by the government of two hundred thousand dol- 
lars to found the school for nurses at St. Thomas' Hospital. This 



562 FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 

would have been her dear desire had she expressed herself, and it 
had come to her. 

She would not have a cent of the money for herself, and estab- 
lished the school that women, through her training, might become 
of use in the world as nurses. Here is the " Nightingale Home," 
together with the " Nightingale Training School." The Home 
has a dining-room, with three long tables in it, Here is the clock 
presented by the Duchess of Baden. Here is a piano, also a gift. 
Here is the marble figure of Miss Nightingale, showing a face full 
of refinement and feeling, and telling the observer that life is 
worth living if lived for others and not for ourselves. 

It may not be out of place to mention here the cause of the 
Crimean War, in which Miss Nightingale labored. 

Professor Charles G. D. Roberts has summed it up thus : 

" In 1853, indignant at Turkish outrages, Nicholas demanded 
that all Christians in Turkey should be put under his protection. 
"When the Sultan refused, a Russian army seized Moldavia and 
Wallachia, whereupon a fleet of British battleships took station 
at the mouth of the Dardanelles. It was a little earlier in this 
same year that Nicholas had made a proposal to England which, 
if it had been accepted, would have settled the Eastern question 
then and there and put a very different face upon affairs of to-day. 
Uttering the memorable saying that Turkey is the ' sick man 
of Europe ' and diseased beyond all hope of healing, he proposed 
that in the interests of peace the inevitable dissolution should be 
brought about at once. He suggested that England take Egypt 
and Crete, while Turkey in Europe should be divided into inde- 
pendent States under his protection. The proposal was fair. It 
was to England's advantage and it was wise statesmanship. But 
the British Government and people together had got their wits 
stubbornly set in one direction. The offer was refused, and from 
this refusal came the war." 

Since the war Miss Nightingale has written several books of 



FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 563 

value in her line. Her Hospital Notes, published in 1859, has 
made radical changes in several hospitals, while it furnished 
practical plans for new ones. Over a hundred thousand copies 
have been sold of another book of hers, Notes on Nursing. 

She is an earnest advocate of sunlight and fresh air. " An 
extraordinary fallacy," she says, "is the dread of night air. 
What air can we breathe at night but night air ? The choice is 
between pure night air from without and foul night air from 
within. Most people prefer the latter. What will they say if it 
be proved true that fully one-half of all the diseases we suffer 
from is occasioned by people sleeping with their windows shut? 
An open window most nights of the year can never hurt anyone. 
In great cities night air is often the best and purest to be had in 
the twenty-four hours." 

She is opposed to dark houses. She would keep sick people or 
well forever in the sunlight if possible, as sunlight is the great 
purifier of the atmosphere. " In the unsunned sides of narrow 
streets there is degeneracy and weakliness of the human race — 
mind and body equally degenerating." 

She also says " Nursing is an art, and if it is to be made an 
art requires as exclusive a devotion, as hard a preparation as any 
painter's or sculptor's work ; for what is the having to do with 
dead canvas or cold marble compared with the having to do with 
the living body, the temple of God's spirit ? Nursing is one of 
the fine arts ; I had almost said the finest of the fine arts." Other 
books published by Miss Nightingale are Observations on the 
Sanitary State of the Army in India, 1863 ; Life or Death in 
India, read before the National Association for the Promotion of 
Social Science, 1873, with an appendix on Life or Death by 
Irrigation, 1874. 

With a subscription sent by her to the Gordon Memorial 
Fund she wrote: "Might not the example of this great and pure 
hero be made to tell, in that self no longer existed in him, but 



564 FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 

only God and duty, on the soldiers who have died to save him 
and on boys who should live to follow him?" 

In this year, 1897, Florence Nightingale has celebrated her 
seventy-seventh year and is so ill that there is little hope of her 
recovery. She has been an invalid a long time. But when she 
passes away she will have left an undying memorial of her 
achievements as a pioneer in the work of nursing the sick and 
wounded on an organized plan in the shape of her Nurses' 
Home. To this she devoted not only the money subscribed by 
the English people as a national testimonial of gratitude to her 
at the close of the Crimean War, the horrors of which she did 
so much to alleviate, but her time and energy, her health and 
strength. She has always been a consistant advocate of the 
rights of woman. Years ago, when she was asked to contribute 
a paragraph to an equal suffrage pamphlet, she wrote: "You ask 
my reasons for believing in woman's suffrage? It seems to me 
almost self-evident, an axiom, that every householder and tax- 
payer ought to have a vote in the expenditure of the money we 
pay, including, as this does, interests the most vital to a human 
being." 

Miss Nightingale has helped to dignify woman's work, to 
elevate humanity, and she has, by self-sacrifice and nobility of 
her labor, made her name immortal. 






